John Langan didn’t set out to write a novel when he started working on “The Fisherman” more than 12 years ago, but he ended up crafting the “Jaws” of cosmic horror.

Like Peter Benchley’s 1974 bestseller about a great white shark that terrorizes a small town on Long Island, Langan’s second novel revolves around a large and menacing aquatic beast which terrorizes a very specific patch of the globe, in this case a corner of the Hudson Valley in New York, where Langan has lived most of his life.

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