Shark attacks, though rare, loom large in the American imagination. This weekend, those fears were realized when a 26-year-old man was killed in Massachusetts in the first attack in the state since 1936. Here are three books about sharks and their victims.

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CLOSE TO SHORE

The Terrifying Shark Attacks of 1916

By Michael Capuzzo

317 pp. Broadway Books. (2001)

The first recorded shark attacks in the United States happened in the New Jersey shore in July 1916, when a Great White swam to the beaches near Beach Haven and Spring Lake — and, incredibly, to a creek 11 miles inland — and killed four people. This book is a historical account of these attacks and the hunt that ensued. Capuzzo draws vivid portraits of the central characters involved (including the shark), and captures the national frenzy caused by the attacks.

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THE DEVIL’S TEETH

A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America’s Great White Sharks

By Susan Casey

291 pp. Henry Holt & Company. (2005)