SPRINGFIELD – As a child seeing the movie “Jaws” while on a summer trip to Misquamicut State Beach in Rhode Island, Mark Masztal was impressed.

He recalled the day after he saw the movies there were shark sightings at the beach.

Over the years, he became interested not just in the story of the hit movie and novel, but he also wondered what happened to those characters.

He’s presented his own answer in his recently published novella, “Blood in the Water.”

Sharks themselves are compelling to him.

“They are so simplistic, so mysterious. They raise so many questions,” he told Reminder Publishing.

He was revisiting the movie in 2019 and wondered what happened to the character of Matt Hooper, the role played by Richard Dreyfuss in the film. He noted the character did not appear in the second “Jaws” film, largely because Dreyfuss was at work with “Jaws’” director Stephen Spielberg on the film “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

Masztal envisioned a life for the character  “In my head he would be running a shark institute,” he said. Masztal renamed the character “Matt Cooper,” as a homage to the original.

Creative endeavors are nothing new for Masztal. He works as a graphic designer, but has a long career as an illustrator and cartoonist. He is the co-creator of the “Chronicles of Shar-Pei,” comic book and created the own science fiction comic “NOMAD.”

Being on the writing side rather than the art, he said, “I like both. I really enjoy comic book work, but I’m having a lot of fun writing.”

The Springfield resident is the co-founder of the Bing Comic Con in Springfield and has started another career as a book designer.

“Blood in the  Water” is his first foray into prose fiction and he said it took more than a year to write.

“It kept me writing every day,” he said. The book made its debut late last year.

He describes the book in this manner: “Matthew Cooper loves sharks so much that he has made them the center of his life’s journey. After a tragic shark attack early in his life, he founded the Cooper Institute for Shark Research. Now age 71, Matt Cooper and the crew of the Polaris II have discovered something terrifying off the coast of Australia. Something that will put them in deadly danger, perhaps even resulting in the death of everyone onboard!”

He recalled how he wrote several chapters to show to his wife, who then encouraged him to write more.

“I had to write a book I really wanted to read,” he noted.

The reviews from readers on the book’s Amazon page have been gratifying to Masztal.

One reader wrote, “Good book! Really liked it. One way I can tell I’m enjoying a book is how quickly I want to get back to it after I’ve put it down. But I didn’t want to put it down.

“Some of the scenes are tense, edge-of-my-seat stuff. I was convinced the author knows his way around a ship and all the high-tech stuff was convincing. And he seems to know his sharks! Perfect pandemic entertainment and a tropical vacation in the midst of a cold spell. All in all, glad I bought it, glad I read it, happy to have this chance to recommend it!”

Masztal in now more than half his way into writing a sequel and has a third book in mind.

The book is available at online book sellers and is available at Most Excellent Comics in Enfield, CT.