Showing posts with label kurson shadow divers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kurson shadow divers. Show all posts

Monday, January 3, 2011

Robert Kurson's 'Shadow Divers' (Steak Knives)


Shadow Divers was a very engrossing read. I fell right in.

I don't know much about diving, and a healthy fear of deep, dark open water limits me to enjoying such adventure vicariously. It was a fine balance between history and exploration/adventure. As I say, a very engrossing read.

It left me unsure how much I should admire the bravery of these wreck divers, and equally stunned by how much preventable risk and stupidity dripped from the pages. Still, I found this pulled me in further and further.

In short, a WWII Uboat is discovered at about 230 feet off the coast of New Jersey, and a handful of divers stop at nothing to try to identify it (as no Uboat is recorded in the official history as going down here*). This is no easy task in the rotted out hulk resting at dangerous depth for all but the most specialized (and crazy/brave) deep divers. It costs several their lives.

If nothing else, this was just a fun read about a subject I know next to nothing about.

Now on to some fiction, I think.

*Note: After finishing this, I scanned back over some Amazon reviews for another lead in the genre. It seems that a 'expose' or rebuttal of Shadow Divers is available, though my cursory review of 'the internets' suggests that it's thin stuff, and cosmetic. Still, here's the link for the interested...