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The Martian meets 127 Hours in this "astoundingly great" (Gillian Flynn, #1 New York Times bestselling author) and scientifically accurate thriller about a scuba diver who's been swallowed by an eighty-foot, sixty-ton sperm whale and has only one hour to escape before his oxygen runs out.
Jay Gardiner has given himself a fool's errand—to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Monastery Beach. He knows it's a long shot, but Jay feels it's the only way for him to lift the weight of guilt he has carried since his dad's death by suicide the previous year.
The dive begins well enough, but the sudden appearance of a giant squid puts Jay in very real jeopardy, made infinitely worse by the arrival of a sperm whale looking to feed. Suddenly, Jay is caught in the squid's tentacles and drawn into the whale's mouth where he is pulled into the first of its four stomachs. He quickly realizes he has only one hour before his oxygen tanks run out—one hour to defeat his demons and escape the belly of a whale.
Suspenseful and cinematic, Whalefall is an "powerfully humane" (Owen King, New York Times bestselling author) thriller about a young man who has given up on life…only to find a reason to live in the most dangerous and unlikely of places.
Let’s talk about quirks
...ng a book that refers to a poem or poet, I always look up the poem and poet. Same actually now that I think of it if a book title is referenced as in Whalefall by Daniel Kraus, the book Cannery Row by John Steinbeck almost had the weight of a character. I researched both book and author to appreciate the full scope of their...
-Connie_K
BookBrowsers Ask Daniel Kraus, author of Angel Down and Whalefall
I know you've got Partially Devoured on deck for March, and of course Whalefall comes out in theaters in October. What else is on tap for you? Can you tell us anything about the projects you're currently working on?
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (1/22/2026)
In the past week I finished https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm/ezine_preview_number/19458/harlem-rhapsody Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray for our upcoming book club read next week. I thought it was very well done and I'm looking forward to discussing it with the ...
-kim.kovacs
Ask the Author mug winners
Here are the latest BookBrowse mug winners for the questions to our visiting authors: Eve J. Chung ( https://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/4821/daughters-of-shandong Daughters of Shandong ): @Jorene_J Princess Joy L. Perry ( https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm...
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (10/16/2025)
...-of-leaves House of Leaves - fascinating book - as well as https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm/ezine_preview_number/23249/whalefall Whalefall by Daniel Kraus. Thanks to the folks here who recommended that one. I zipped through it in two days! People have compared it to https://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/in...
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (09-25-2025)
After previously reading WhaleFall by Daniel Kraus, I just finished Whale Fall by Elizabeth O'Connor…The first exciting and gritty, the second sparse and soft spoken. Both stories feed off (rather lit...
-Connie_K
Anyone read WhaleFall by Daniel Kraus (2023)?
Glad I helped you down the rabbit hole to a new book. The Kraus book looks a little too claustrophobic for my taste, but it does sound intriguing.
-Barbara_B1
What are you reading this week? (8/28/2025)
@Connie_K I'm glad to hear you're a fan of Daniel Kraus. I really enjoyed https://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/5060/angel-down Angel Down and I hope you like it! I haven't read Whalefall but I plan to.
-kim.kovacs
"A moving character study disguised as a riveting, cinematic survival thriller...The pacing is relentless, the awe astounding, and the tension palpably constricting, even as Kraus takes time to provide necessary details both scientific and visceral." —Booklist (starred review)
"This hard sci-fi thriller is full of cinematic and wild suspense and would be great for fans of Andy Weir." —Library Journal (starred review)
"This gripping sci-fi thriller from bestseller Kraus takes readers quite literally into the belly of the beast […] Kraus provides solid nautical science alongside the stretchy coincidences that fuel Jay's survival. Just on the brink of horror fiction, especially for the claustrophobic, Kraus's deep-sea thrill ride will have readers on the edges of their seats." —Publishers Weekly
"A crazy, and crazily enjoyable, beat-the-clock adventure story about fathers, sons, guilt and the mysteries of the sea ... [Kraus] brings the rigor of a scientist and the sensibility of a poet to his descriptions of the undersea world." —New York Times
"Astoundingly great. Whalefall is, quite simply, a beautiful novel—a must-read story of the sea, the nature of awe, and the briny relationships between fathers and sons." —Gillian Flynn, #1 New York Times bestselling author
"Whalefall is a rare thing: a page-turning, hold-your-breath, man-vs-nature thrill ride, but also a gripping exploration of the unnavigable relationship between parent and child. It's an anguished cry from the depths of that struggle. Bravo!" —Christopher Golden, New York Times bestselling author of Road of Bones and All Hallows
This information about Whalefall was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Daniel Kraus is a New York Times bestselling writer of novels, TV, and film. His novel Whalefall received a front-cover review in The New York Times Book Review, won the Alex Award, was an LA Times Book Prize Finalist, and was a Best Book of 2023 from NPR, The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and more. With Guillermo del Toro, he coauthored The Shape of Water, based on the same idea the two created for the Oscar–winning film. Also with del Toro, Kraus coauthored Trollhunters, which was adapted into the Emmy-winning Netflix series. His also cowrote The Living Dead and Pay the Piper with legendary filmmaker George A. Romero. Kraus's The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch was named one of Entertainment Weekly's Top 10 Books of the Year. Kraus has won the Bram Stoker Award, Scribe Award, two Odyssey Awards (for both Rotters and Scowler), and has appeared multiple times as Library Guild selections, YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults, and more. His work has been translated into over twenty languages. He lives with his wife in Chicago. Visit him at DanielKraus.com.
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