Shadow Divers

The author must have Circus Barker blood somewhere in his family tree. He really has a ‘flair for dramatics' in telling the story. He also seems to have taken excellent notes or really good recordings of second hand sources to retell what someone no longer alive was thinking. I prefer the less wordy and dramatic flair of [a:Jon Krakauer 1235 Jon Krakauer https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1430856379p2/1235.jpg], but still applaud the level of work involved in the telling of this story... and what a contrast! Kurson is ocean themed, Krakauer has many mountain themes.I enjoyed the mystery and especially the research! I lived in Washington for a while, in the Navy Yard neighborhood no less, so I'm familiar with the National Archives and the Navy Yard Museum. I'd always wondered what researchers do when they're behind the closed doors of an archive and after the Trade Tower bombing and Navy Yard shooting, the Navy Yard is no longer as accessible as it once was.

It took me a few chapters to get past the author's style, which was flowery and full of weird, nonsensical metaphors. But, ultimately, once I settled in, I really enjoyed the story and the portrayal of the two main divers.

If you don't like hearing metaphors like, “he faced a smorgasbord of other perils, each capable of killing him à la carte,” or “his shoulder blades became spires on his emaciated frame, his jaundiced skin and stringy hair a goulash of self-abandon,” or if the phrase “reached through time and chokeholded his imagination” grates against your sensibilities, this might not be the book for you.

But, if you can stick through this kind of writing and want to read a well-researched, thoughtful, and just overall good adventure yarn, then this book probably is for you.

This book combined many of my interests and knowledge. I always like reading about nautical adventures and I have worked as an archivist for nearly twenty years. I enjoyed reading how Chatterton and Kohler researched the history of World War II German U-boats and how they gathered evidence from the submarine to discover the truth.