Sounding

He had a brain biologically identical to man's but seven times its weight and volume, writes Hank Searls of a massive, aging sperm whale whose compassion, fear, and anger at man's attacks on his kind drives the best-selling novelist's intricately researched classic SOUNDING. Teetering on a rocky seamount off New York, the young sonar officer of an accidentally sunken Russian spy submarine prepares to die with the lovely ship's surgeon and the rest of his shipmates. Everyone has lost hope -- until they hear the whales sounding above. Once a Cetacean epic told the tale of man and whale swimming together in harmony. Can these ancient times be revisited? Experience what the Los Angeles Times called .a rare success.