Over ten feet long it weighs in at nearly a quarter of a ton. Covering its back are armoured plates made from bone. Five hundred stiletto-sharp teeth line its long crocodilian jaws. It's a prehistoric beast of staggering proportions; a fearsome creature from the time of the dinosaurs. But the Alligator Gar an air-breathing survivor from the Cretaceous period is still with us today patrolling inland rivers hunting in murky waters shared by human communities. & for Jeremy Wade described as the 'greatest angling explorer of his generation' the Gar & other outlandish freshwater predators have been an obsession for all his adult life. With names like Arapaima Snakehead Goonch Goliath Tigerfish & Electric Eel many of them have acquired an almost mythical status. In a quest that has taken him from the Amazon to the Congo & from North America to the mountains of India Wade has pursued the truth about these little known often misunderstood animals. Along the way he's survived a plane crash malaria & a fish-inflicted blow to the chest that according to a later scan caused permanent scarring to his heart. In RIVER MONSTERS Wade delivers a sometimes jaw-dropping blend of adventure natural history legend & detective work. It reads like a hunt for the Loch Ness Monster. But it's all true. These are fisherman's tales like you've never heard before. The stories of the ones that didn't get away.. .