G. Bruce Knecht - Hooked: Pirates, Poaching, and the Perfect Fish

Praise for HOOKED

A high-seas adventure with enough action and suspense to have you holding your breath.

A mystery that untangles the roots of a culinary fad fitfully hatched in and marketed from Los Angeles.

A courtroom thriller.

Proof positive than an objective eye is the most persuasive of all.

Mr. G. Bruce Knecht, take a bow.

Los Angeles Times

A riveting account of how the rise of the Patagonian toothfish from trash status to gourmet cult fish renamed Chilean Sea Bass led, in just a decade, to stocks being depleted everywhere except the remote subantarctic seas, driving up the price and so offering huge rewards to pirates.

International Herald Tribune

Knecht lands a salty, suspense-filled adventure tale with ramifications for every fish eater among us.

Mens Journal

Hooked is a superb work, and one of the most engaging books that readers are likely to find. Knecht is a master of his craft. The story he tells here is both a high-seas adventure and a subtle exploration of modern times.

William Langewiesche, author of American Ground,

The Outlaw Sea, and Sahara Unveiled

Explains how a fish that was unknown not too many years ago set off a global gold rush.

The Wall Street Journal

A cliff-hanger You wont be able to put this book down.

The Post and Courier (Charleston, South Carolina)

An essential cautionary tale about why humans are the weakest link in the food chain Knecht supplies the big picture, even as he narrates a gripping tale that is more Master and Commander than Super Size Me. A wake-up call, you might say, if it werent already too late

The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

In this tripping account of a heroic but ultimately doomed effort to bring Viarsa to justice, Knecht shines a light on how the Patagonian toothfish has gone from being an overlooked species to a sought-after delicacy on the worlds finest restaurant tables.

Sunday Times (Australia)

A fascinating story that weaves suspense and environmental reporting into a tale of the worldwide consequences of Americas ravenous appetite for fish.

Winston-Salem Journal

Knecht tells his story with vigor and enjoyment. Alternating chapters detail the discovery of the fish, the worldwide destruction of fishing grounds, and the efforts of people dedicated to slowing the destruction.

The Sydney Morning Herald

How the fish nobody wanted became the trendy Chilean Sea Bass, and how over the last 30 years it has been fished almost to the point of extinction.

The New York Times

This is a fascinating and well-told fish story that takes you all over the globe, from slushy seas of half-water, half-ice off Antarctica to the kitchens of restaurants in midtown Manhattan. The cast of characters would strain the binding of the most imaginative novel, from stubborn Australian customs police to cool, sophisticated commercial fishing pirates, to marketing experts who hyped the bizarre, ugly, deepwater Patagonian toothfish into the hottest item on trendy restaurant menus all over the world and thus spelled its doom.

Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down

One of the best reads about the ocean to come along in ages. It is better written than a John Grisham novel, has more high-seas excitement than The Perfect Storm, and is factually engaging. It has only one drawback: When you pick it up, you wont be able to put it down.

The Providence Journal

Knecht relates the adventure as if he were one of the participants providing gripping descriptions that beautifully capture what its like to battle 60-foot waves and 50-knot winds in a boat.

Kirkus Reviews

Bruce Knecht tells a great story with an ear for the absurd in the tragicomic world of modern commercial fishing and the contemporary food scene. Hooked will make you laugh and get angry and think twice about what you are eating.

Mark Kurlansky, author of Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World and Salt: A World History

Hooked also chronicles the history of Chilean Sea Bass, which Los Angeles fish merchant Lee Lantz could barely sell for fish sticks after he first discovered it off a Chilean fish dock in 1977.

The Miami Herald

Piracy on the high seas is never dull, but Bruce Knechts wonderfully styled account of Australian patrol boat Southern Supporters chase in 2003 of the Uruguayan long-liner Viarsa delivers edge-of-the seat-reading.

The Australian

Every citizen should read this book. In a highly entertaining fashion, it connects the fish, human appetites, and ignorance to make it obvious that future government and civic inaction is unconscionable.

William Ruckelshaus, founding administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency

The ultimate fish story.

The San Diego Union-Tribune

Knechts gripping book flips between the commercial history of the toothfishjust the latest of many culinary fads that end up threatening an ocean speciesand the chase, which illustrates the practically lawless world of commercial fishing.

Publishers Weekly

Knecht intertwines the tale of a culinary calamity with a sympathetic look at both poachers and the government patrols who battle amid howling winds and 45-foot waves.

Sierra magazine

Compelling story of fish piracy and the exploitation of the Patagonian toothfish.

The Sacramento Bee

The Patagonian toothfish (aka Chilean Sea Bass) has found its Melville. Bruce Knechts story is every bit as exciting as Moby-Dick. In this thrilling and informative book, the good guys chase the bad guys halfway around the world.

Richard Ellis, author of The Empty Ocean

S outhern Supporter was in silent mode as it closed in on its target. The external lights were off, the portholes had been blackened, and no one touched the radio. The radar was activated only twice an hour, each time for less than a minute, to check for icebergs. One day earlier, a sensor on the Australian patrol boat had picked up outbound radar emissions from three nearby vessels. All of them appeared to be just west of Heard Island, an uninhabited scrap of land halfway between South Africa and Australia, nine hundred miles north of Antarctica. It was the dead of winter, and the island, virtually barren and almost completely covered by glaciers, was buffeted by air so cold that wind-borne saltwater had formed horizontal icicles against the rails of the ship.

Stephen Duffy, the Australian Customs officer who was leading the patrol, knew exactly what the three vessels were doing. The waters near Heard Island contain one of the worlds largest populations of Patagonian toothfish. For most of their existence, the prehistoric-looking gray-black creatures, which can live for fifty years and grow to six feet in length, had thrived in near-frozen obscurity. That was before a little-known businessman in Los Angeles coined an inaccurate though vastly more appealing name and chefs fell in love with a white flesh that seemed to accept every spice and hold up to every method of cooking. It was also before fleets of fishing vesselsmany of them piratessought to capitalize on the burgeoning demand.