No treasure in The Island

I started reading Peter Benchley's 1979 novel The Island sitting in a waiting room, for lack of anything better to read. And the sucker hooked me.

For those who don't know, the late author was the son of Nathaniel Benchley and the grandson of Robert Benchley, both literary figures of high reknown. He was also the author of Jaws, the novel that was the Twilight of the early Seventies.

Jaws the book is nowhere near as exciting as the classic film adapted from it: it's a potboiler, filled with c...