Hooked: Pirates, Poaching, and the Perfect Fish [Paperback]

G. Bruce Knecht (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1594866945 | ISBN-13: 978-1594866944 | Publication Date: May 1, 2007

This modern pirate yarn has all the makings of a great true adventure tale and explores the ways our culinary tastes have all manner of unintended consequences for the world around us. Hooked tells the story of the poaching of the Patagonian toothfish (known to Americans as "Chilean Sea Bass") and is built around the pursuit of the illegal fishing vessel Viarsa by an Australian patrol boat, Southern Supporter, in one of the longest pursuits in maritime history.

Author G. Bruce Knecht chronicles how an obscure fish merchant in California "discovered" and renamed the fish, kicking off a worldwide craze for a fish no one had ever heard of and everyone had to have. With demand exploding, pirates were only too happy to satisfy our taste for Chilean Sea Bass. From the world's most treacherous waters to its most fabulous kitchens, Hooked is at once a thrilling tale and a revelatory popular history that will appeal to a diverse group of readers. Think The Hungry Ocean meets Kitchen Confidential.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. The Patagonian toothfish—which can live up to 50 years and grow to six feet long—is an ugly creature considered too bland for eating by most South Americans. Its high fat content, codlike texture and lack of a fishy taste convinced a Los Angeles fish merchant who found the toothfish in Chile in 1977 that, given an exotic new name, it would do quite well in America. By 1998, "Chilean sea bass" had become the hottest restaurant craze: "[e]veryone had to have it." Knecht (The Proving Ground) weaves a parallel plot, which takes place in the South Indian Ocean in 2003, where an Australian patrol boat is hunting down a pirate vessel for stealing toothfish. The chase takes them thousands of nautical miles away to dangerous Antarctic waters and involves South African mercenaries and a dramatic boarding in dangerous seas. Knecht's gripping book flips between the commercial history of the toothfish—just the latest of many culinary fads that end up threatening an ocean species—and the chase, which illuminates the practically lawless world of commercial fishing, where factory boats with vast dragnets can devastate a population in just a couple of years, a practice the author calls "the marine equivalent of strip mining." First serial in the Wall Street Journal. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Hooked is a fish story, a global whodunit, a courtroom drama, and a critically important ecological message all rolled into one."--Tom Brokaw, author of The Greatest Generation

"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 and marketed from Los Angeles. A courtroom thriller. Proof positive that an objective eye is the most persuasive of all. Mr. G. Bruce Knecht, take a bow."--Los Angeles Times

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Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: Rodale Books (May 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594866945
• ISBN-13: 978-1594866944
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #100,585 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #33 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Biological Sciences > Animals > Fish & Sharks

More About the Author

G. Bruce Knecht is a former senior writer and foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and the author of The Proving Ground as well as Hooked: Pirates, Poaching and the Perfect Fish.

After joining the Journal in 1994, he wrote about the banking industry and pursued investigative projects until 1995 when he began covering publishing--books, magazines, newspapers and the press. In 1998, the Journal nominated his articles about how advertisers and retailers influenced the editorial content of major magazines for two Pulitzer Prizes. The same stories won an award from the University of Missouri Journalism School.
In 1998, Knecht moved to Hong Kong to become the Journal's Asia Correspondent. His article about children of American servicemen who are still living in Vietnam won a Human Rights Press Award.

Knecht took a leave of absence from the Journal to write The Proving Ground, which was initially published in June 2001 by Little, Brown & Company in the United States as well as publishers in several other countries. CNN produced a documentary based on the book. Hooked was published by Rodale and several overseas publishers in 2006 and is currently being developed as a documentary. He is currently at work on a book for Free Press that will describe the design and building of a very large yacht in the context of the recent economic crisis.

From 1981 through 1983, Knecht was a reporter and later an assistant editor for Dun's Review magazine. He joined the Los Angeles Herald Examiner in 1984 as its senior financial writer and also worked for The New York Times on a free-lance basis from 1982 to 1985. He was a summer associate at Goldman, Sachs & Company in New York in 1985, and in 1986 he became an associate at Tishman Speyer Properties. In 1987, he joined Lincoln Property Company, first as an associate and later a partner.

He was a London-based free-lance writer from 1991 to 1994, focusing on business and economic topics, particularly those involving the collapse of the Soviet Union. His articles have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, The Independent (UK), National Review, Barron's, Conde Nast Traveler, SAIL, and Men's Journal.

Born in Morristown, New Jersey, Knecht received a bachelor's degree from Colgate University and has served on the board of directors of its alumni corporation. He earned an M.B.A. from Harvard University and was a Reuters Fellow at Oxford University.

An avid sailor, Knecht raced across the Atlantic Ocean on Mari-Cha IV, the yacht that broke the 100-year-old transatlantic race record.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars When Will We Run Out of Fish, May 29, 2006

By 

R. Spell "raspell" (Memphis, TN USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hooked: Pirates, Poaching, and the Perfect Fish (Hardcover)

This is an excellent book detailing an illegal fishing expedition in Australian water resulting in a forced boarding after a lengthy chase to north of South Africa, as well as the resulting trial. But that is not the most interesting story of the book. The author details the discovery of Chilean Sea Bass (bass? what a joke), the marketing angle, and the subsequent ecological tragedy as the sea beds are over fished in 15 years. The author did excellent research and tells this compelling tale while teaching the reader about the fishing industry, legal and illegal, and the current state of our fishing beds. One concern I have about the book is it is somewhat disjointed as he jumps from country to country at one point adding in a story of a fishing company owner living in America who is arrested for importing fish illegally caught. Also, in many respects the trial at the end of the book is very anti-climatic.

Overall though, this is a very interesting book where you will learn quite a bit about the fishing industry and problems with our supplies of fish.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't order fish from a restaurant menu until you read this!, May 16, 2006

By 

R. Allen (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hooked: Pirates, Poaching, and the Perfect Fish (Hardcover)

When was the last time you ordered fish at a restaurant? Have you ever wondered how those fish got there? How about Chilean Sea Bass? My wife and I have ordered it dozens of times. Very tasty. One of my favorites. Once you read "Hooked", you might want to reconsider. "Hooked" is an adventure tale of how our oceans are being stripped of fish in unenlightened ways. This book is fascinating reading as fast paced as an adventure novel. I guarantee you'll enjoy it and learn so much about things you never knew about--fish, our oceans, ice, maritime laws. Every person who has ever ordered fish from a restaurant should read it. I highly recommend it.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars GLOBALIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS, May 4, 2006

By 

apg/drs (nantucket ma usa) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hooked: Pirates, Poaching, and the Perfect Fish (Hardcover)

Perfect fish? This is the perfect book! Hooked is part pirate chase, part history, part courtroom drama, and part musings on globalization. And it is incredible. Knecht somehow threads disparate stories together to tell a tale about the consequences of an advertising executive's decision to change the name of Patagonian toothfish to Chilean Sea Bass, and the resultant mania it caused. Basically, sophisticated urban diners search for the new, new thing combined with a fish so oily that inexperienced chefs could not over-cook it results in... the worlds longest pirate chase.