the book of the week is "The Last Dive"

From the darkened recesses of a man’s imagination come the demons and sea monsters of his psyche, the sirens that tempt him to his doom. All too often they come calling in the guise of pleasure. Too much of a good thing can kill.

And so it is with the story of Chris and Chrissy Rouse, a father and son diving team that went where few recreational divers dare, down beyond recreational and sport diving’s limits and into the murky world of caves and sunken ships. It is a world where the single kick of a fin can kick up a blinding fog of mud and debris into the water, blinding a diver. Without superb training and fastidious attention to safety one can easily perish and many have, dying horrifying deaths as they ran out of air, lost in a cave, desperately clawing at the ton’s of earth that separated them from a breath of air.

In “The Last Dive” Bernie Chowdhury narrative takes us where most of us never want to be, in that deep and lonely world. He surrounds the story of the Rouses by methodically laying out the history of scuba diving, the special challenges of cave diving and the even riskier world of deep wreck exploration. The Rouses were no slacks, as Chowdhury explains, they were expert divers. But they also had their demons and demons are no ally in the deep. Although they dove regularly together, father and son also fought regularly too, so much so that they were called the “bicker brothers.” In a world where communication and cooperation are essential to survival the bickering may have been the fatal lapse in the mens' attempt to dive a sunken World War Two U-boat.

Never overly dramatic nor overly protective of the diving world that he is also a part of, Chowdhury nonetheless writes with passion and authority. If you love John Krakauer’s works like “Into Thin Air” you’ll be right at home with “The Last Dive.” As a history, as a learning experience and as an adventure tale the books is a wonderful read. It simply succeeds on all levels.

The Last Dive is available through Kepler's, one of my all-time favorite bookstores.