Valet Reader

The way I see it, my last book review, Run, had none of the personal stuff so you can pretty much assume you’re going to get more than your fair share here.

It’s been about 7 years since I last went scuba diving. Pretty sure I was taking in the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and I remember it being incredible. There are a couple other dives I have etched into my memory including shark diving with my brother in Nassau, night diving with my friend Mike, playing hang man on a slate with Mike sitting on the ocean floor 100 ft. below, and unsuccessfully lobster diving. Ok, those are quite a few dives that are etched. It’s amazing, yet not at all surprising, how much a book about diving can spark in me all these memories and give me the urge to want to dive again.

If you haven’t already figured out that this book has something to do with scuba diving I recommend you bow out now. I’ll only be a little offended. Shadow Divers is a true story of men on a mission to discover the undiscovered, underwater, at depths which were previously thought to be unsearchable.

When Bill Nagle, diver and boat captain, is given a set of coordinates of a location just off the coast of New Jersey where a fellow captain believes there to be a sunken something or other, he gathers a crack team of divers to do some exploring a la Indiana Jones. What they discover 200+ feet below the surface is a wreck divers wet dream. A WWII era U-Boat that no one had known was there. I know, I too was hoping that it would somehow have been the cast of The Jersey Shore but I think that’s a bit too contemporary.

Similar to other treasure hunting type stories there is the ever present sense of competition. Just as Tommy Thompson had to deal with Wally Kreisle in Ship of Gold, Nagel and his cohort John Chatterton had to deal with another boat captained by Steve Bielinda.

There are quite a few characters introduced but at the forefront are Nagel, Chatterton (first man to dive the sub) and Richard Kohler who for a time was on the rival, Bielinda’s, boat. Instead of focusing on the competitive nature of the search (after all, the sub was found) the majority of the story is spent on who these men are and how these men and their friends attempted to solve the mystery of what u-boat this was. Several theories are thrown around yet none come to any fruition. The men not only dive for clues but travel back and forth to D.C. and Germany in hopes of solving the mystery. Identifying the sub turns out to be an extremely dangerous endeavor, not without it’s perils and a time consuming monster. Whether or not they actually manage to do so, well I’ll leave that up to you to find out.

I actually wasn’t so sure how I felt about Kurson’s writing style in the beginning, but the story carries itself. By the end of the novel he had redeemed himself. And I will tell you that reading the scene depicted on pg. 340, wherein Chatterton willingly risks his life to try and identify the submarine, is the tensest I’ve been while reading a passage in a book in a long time.

I had not previously heard of this book until both my brother and dad recommended it. My brother having been first given this book in 2004. At the time, he was hanging in the Hamptons (how he do) at Steven Spielberg’s house (how he do). Apparently everyone that was at the Spielberg’s for the holiday received a book (there weren’t many there) and my brother was given this one. I guess Shadow Divers is among Steven’s favorites and therefore my brother received it. Of course when I was at the Spielberg’s back in 03′, I got Steven playing a banjo, a pregnant Gwyneth Paltrow and a shy Chris Martin which for some would be cause for celebration but for me was kind of like “meh.” That said, I bring all this up cause there has been some rumor that the book will be turned into a movie and that Spielberg owns the rights (and also to brag/gloat a wee bit). Oh, and I’m not going to get into what he or I was doing there, I like to leave you wondering.

Scuba diving is awesome, in case you were unaware. There was awhile there that I actually considered becoming a commercial diver. You know one of those guys that dives down with a blow torch in his hands and repairs junk down below. That dream didn’t last long but it was there. Reading this book has pretty much affirmed the fact that it’s really not in my blood to do that kind of work. That certainly doesn’t mean I don’t love reading about it though.This book in particular is a good read that doesn’t get too technical, instead you get a strong story, a great mystery and a warm feeling from the characters by the time you reach the end.