A Fish Caught in Time: The Search for the Coelacanth

This is a well written book of good pace and very good explanation - and with the subject matter that was necessary, to stop it turning text-book.
In 1938 a fish was caught by a fishing boat off the coast of South Africa. The local museum curator took it from the fishermen, and despite it being Christmas time, set about trying to contact people to assist with the identification. The fish was a Coelacanth, thought long extinct.
This is the story of the curator, Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, or JLB Smith, an amateur ichthyologist (fish scientist!) and of Mark Erdmann, a marine biologist. The story travels from South Africa to the Comoro Islands, to Mozambique to Indonesia.