Book Review: The Shayu Situation by Carolyn McCray (Salechii #3)

This is the third novel in the Apex Predator series and it takes a slightly different format from the other two books. Instead of taking place in an underwater facility like the first two books, our heroes instead go off to investigate dangerous shark activity in India. People taking part in a religious ceremony in the Ganges river become an all you can eat buffet for a whole pile of sharks and local authorities are concerned about why it happened and want it to be stopped from happening again. With fears that China has launched the sharks to divert from an attack on India through tunnels from Pakistan, Callum's team need to find out how to stop the sharks.

Callum has had to take a job in India tagging sharks with Dillon and Quax and this is where he is working when he hears of the tragedy. Nick and Nami arrive in India with Tanaka and Shalie for a holiday and link up with Callum's group. Nami has decided to follow her father into the film industry, which has Dillon worried about their relationship and Shalie feels her own relationship with Callum is under severe strain. Tanaka has also got on the bad side of Callum by inventing a robotic Great White Shark called Honky, an addition to the story that I found to be very entertaining. It was fun to see the developing relationships between the group in this book.

Tanaka mentions that he was approached by a fishing company to make micro bombs for them to attract sharks and kill them. Tanaka didn't like the idea of it and said no, but could someone have used the technology to attract the sharks to the Ganges? With more sightings of sharks being released into rivers by a fake Red Cross Chinese ship, it could be a new warfare tactic. Callum and his team are determined to find the ship which is off the Indian coast and get proof of what they are doing so they can be stopped. First they need to find a way to get onto the ship and then they need to explore it and get proof that sharks are being kept there. But if they get spotted snooping it could be fatal and time is short with a storm coming.

I did enjoy the final full length novel in the series even though it changed from the format of the first two which were about underwater facilities flooded by water and deadly sharks. This book takes place mainly on boats and on the mainland for small parts of it. With this kind of book, it really makes me want to stay on dry land that can't be flooded! There is still the tension from the book especially in the scenes on the ship when they are looking for evidence. It might sound like there are fewer sharks but that isn;t the case! When the storm hits the ships, the sharks really come into play in a pretty scary way! I liked the way the story went. 

This has been a hidden gem of a series for fans of creature features and sharks in particular. There is plenty of action in each book, a bucketload of fear and tension and a great bunch of characters that the reader can be scared for! I love the mix of robotics in the plot and Quax is such an amazing character. I really want to get these books in paperback with those amazing covers!

Read September 2018.
4 stars.