Adventure off Antarctica.

Australian customs officers, Spanish pirates, Uruguayan businessmen, slick defense lawyers and uzi-carrying South African security guards are only a few of the characters appearing in G. Bruce Knecht's latest book, Hooked: Pirates, Poaching, and the Perfect Fish (Rodale, $24.95). Knecht's exhaustive research whisks his reader to the Antarctic Ocean, where an Australian patrol boat pursues an unidentified fishing vessel through storms and around icebergs. The Aussie captain Stephen Duffy believes that Antonio Perez's boat has been illegally fishing for Chilean Sea Bass (more accurately known as the Patagonian toothfish), whose former abundance plummeted after its oily white flesh became a favorite of restaurateurs.

Knecht breaks up the gripping narrative with chapters on the toothfish's history and rapid decimation as a result of modern fishing techniques. Knecht, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, approaches the pursuit and subsequent trial from multiple angles, even uncovering the motives of the pirates, who believe the sea should remain unregulated. But while Knecht presents all of the arguments, he comes down decisively on the side of the conservationist Australians: "It is difficult to escape the conclusion that in going to this extreme, what is literally the end of the Earth, Perez and his industry are approaching the ultimate end of the road."