Rating: 
Summary: Must read for anyone who dives deep - a cautionary tale
Review: Scuba diver's delight...Wow! This is a fantastic introduction to the world of wreck diving. If you have ever drawn breath on a regulator, you will appreciate this well-written book. This is the best popular work on the thrills, dangers, and deadly mistakes experienced in the sport of technical diving. The story of a father and son who lost their lives, and the near-miss of the author himself, this book explains in a readable yet captivating way the history, background, and living reality of diving on shipwrecks. Although I personally take issue with his 'trophy-hunting' attitude to artifact recovery, Chowdhury gives keen insight on the frame of mind which drives people to the extreme.The same way 'Into Thin Air' draws you to the summit of Everest, even if you've never hiked more than a mile in your life, 'The Last Dive' introduces you to the mystery, fascination and danger of the depths. I highly recommend it!
Rating:
Summary: Far from perfect, but a real page-turner, and a great read!
Review: As a fairly experienced wreck diver myself, I was very intrigued by the book title and dust-cover summary. So when a fellow instructor offered to loan me his brand new hardback edition three years ago, I jumped. Two days later, I'd consumed it fully, having read it entirely in just two sittings! If you're interested in what happens to divers who push the limits, you'll find this book incredibly engrossing. Author Bernie Chowdhury, a highly experienced technical diver and editor/publisher of a technical diving journal ("Immersed"), combines the real-life facts surrounding the fatal story of the Rouses with fairly exhaustive foundational material on the technical and physical challenges of diving well beyond the so-called "recreational" depth limit. The author's descriptions of technical diving (both wreck and cave environments) paint a vivid picture of what it's like to be there in person. I sometimes felt myself physically tensing my muscles as I anticipated impending crisis situations in the book. Chowdhury describes his own brush with decompression sickness ("the bends") where he could very easily have stuck to the story of the Rouse men and their demise without disclosing information about his own incident. However, consistent with the book's overall underlying theme, the author uses his own almost fatal incident to reinforce the fact that rules, guidelines, checklists, and safety procedures are all created for good reason. Whenever a diver bypasses these or lets his macho attitude carry him into the dive, he's simply an accident waiting for a place to happen. The story bounces around a fair bit, somewhat like a modern action film -- we're initially introduced to the "situation" just before the major event occurs. Then, before we can actually see it through to conclusion, the story jumps backward, and we experience a series of interwoven flashbacks recapping all that led up to that moment... before finally replaying the actual incident and conclusion of the tale. In this case, the author not only describes thee technical training the Rouse men obtain as they progress in their diving, he also tries to paint a picture of their individual personalities and their rocky relationship as father and son, each driven by an extremely competitive spirit. By the time the reader finishes this book, almost no fatality described in its pages will seem to be a surprise. You can see them coming...not because the author tips his hand (though he sometimes does), but because there are SO MANY errors made in each and every case the author outlines! Some reviewers have indicated being put off by Chowdhury's reconstructed dialogues between various characters throughout the book. Clearly he couldn't know exactly what was said in many of these private conversations. But since he knew all of these divers personally and interviewed many others in the tech diving "fraternity" before writing this book, he knew each of their personalities, their typical vocabularies, and their overall demeanors. Thus, although somewhat contrived and clearly conjecture on the author's part, these segments of dialogue help create colorful characters for us as we read about their adventures and misadventures. Highly recommended for anyone who is already a certified scuba diver, or anyone considering taking up the sport. If it makes each reader just a bit more cautious for the next few years after reading it, this book is an incredibly cheap risk-reduction product.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting and thought-provoking
Review: The author uses the tragic story of the Rouses as a framework to discuss the history, successes, tragedies and mysteries surrounding deep water diving. Although the story of the Rouses is fascinating itself, Chowdhury's exploration uses these characters to demonstrate the personalities and thought processes that lead humans to investigate and push their own limits to extremes. Through this, he encourages all people to follow their heart to adventure but consider the often tragic possibilities in order to develop a mature,clear-headed approach.
Some readers miss the point and believe this is a novel that should entertain only. Chowdhury spends a great deal of time on diving history, diving physiology, and other diving mishaps. Some readers may believe that they are so much smarter than the characters in the book. The author points out that no one is too good/smart to get into trouble. And these are exactly the people the book is aiming to explore and describe.
Rating:
Summary: What every diver show know ....
Review: Dry-docked and I finally have time to read this book! Chowdhury makes an attempt to clarify the mystique of hardcore diving for divers and non-divers alike. The book is generally well written and much can be gleened from the manner of writing as well as what's said. Commentaries about the book's organization are not as annoying or as fatal a flaw as other reviews critique. I'll bypass what has been said amongst other reviews. Like all of history's pathfinders, new roads are often paved with the bodies of pioneers. Modern procedures in cave and technical diving were forming at the time this story transpired, and diving deep on air alone was acceptable. No matter how plans are made to lower risk, anyone who opens new roads into an unknown, from test pilot to tech diver, must have a daredevil's disposition. The care the book's divers gave towards their mountains of equipment attests to their position on survival, yet other items in their lives were instrumental to their deaths. What doesn't come across clearly is that, like a drug, a breed of person finds life vibrant in the context of risky adventure if they survive risky adventure, and this is further magnified by the idea of seeing or doing what few, or none, have experienced before you. To paraphrase Chowdhury, just as there's a difference between hiking and climbing Mount Everest, so is there between recreation SCUBA and tech or cave diving, or between reading Skin Diver or the defunct AquaCorps{e?!} SCUBA can be an adjunct to one's vacation, or a way of life. Dedicated divers share strong comradeship that, like war veterans, stems from shared experiences, particularly perilous ones, and telling the tale. The bonds of such a 'dive tribe' is alive and well, and its ranges can be experienced through interacting with the hundreds of divers who flood... or the wreck divers of NJ, where part of the Chowdhury's story unfolds. While one could read the Last Dive in the context of the Rouse story, its also as much about the siren song of the whole of SCUBA, its history, its extremes, its culture and the adventure spirit.
Rating:
Summary: Hardcore divers must read - others would enjoy
Review: Cave and wreck divers all over the world should read this book. Excellent story and well written. Even nondivers would enjoy this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Condoning Stupidity
Review: To call the two main subjects Chris and Chrissy "technical divers" is a real travesty to the responsible tech diving community. The author parades them around as heros, even telling of his own "bends" incident. Diving air on the U-Who... they really got what was coming to them.
Rating:
Summary: Poorly written, painful to read as a result
Review: The author attempts to romanticize the lives of the Rouse family, who came across as an extremely dysfunctional group. My take is that they were, at best, irrational cowboys, taking ill advised risks and were completely irresponsible, in all aspects of their lives. They were, in the end, tragically victims of their own poor judgement and behavior (as where many of the people talked about in the book). The author should have titled this book after himself, as this seems to be his favorite topic, to the detriment of the story. From his poor writing style, composition, leaving out information which would have made the story much more interesting, and to his repeating the same information over and over again, this book was difficult to enjoy. The author took a compelling event, and ruined the story.
Rating:
Summary: Very disappointing, poorly done
Review: This book was a painful read. It was written horribly, which made it very annoying to keep reading. The information was presented in a very confusing manner, and was often repeated through out the book. In other key areas of the book, not enough informatiuon was given. All the main characters, most particularly the father and son, were extremely dysfunctional. The author chose to romanticize them, which was ridiculous. They were irresponsible cowboys, who, unfortunately, were the victims of their own carelessness. If this book even remotely captures the events as they occurred, nearly all of these people were idiots. I wouldn't disagree that they need psychological help. The author needs help as well with basic grammar and composition. While the events were truly tragic, so was the telling of the story. It was more about the author, for crying out loud!!
Rating:
Summary: The Value and Price of Underwater Exploration
Review: Being a recreational diver myself, Chowdhury's account of the life and death of his friends, sent chills through my body. The real accounts of underwater accidents, planned for and unplanned for reminded me of what the author talks about as divers being in an alien environment...the deep. Chowdhury does an excellent job in defining every aspect of what's what and who's who. A non-diver would have no difficulty in following this heart pounding adventure! It is one thing to learn about recompression during some basic scuba diving courses, but quite another thing to see the team action in rescuing divers and "seeing" the process. With every hit of the waves against the ladder, my breath stopped. The little so-called diving mishaps should be wake-up calls for those divers who take this sport so lightly....those who put long lapses between dives with no reviews, those who drink excessively on dive vacations or "sudafed" themselves into hyperactivity because they are too macho to miss a dive, and those who consider themselves beyond any problems at all. Technical diving goes far beyond the territory of the advanced recreational diving limits, and Chowdhury admits that the world of technical diving has come a long way since the Rouses (father and son) first started mixing gases. Beyond the story itself, Chowdhury ventures into the exploration of the personalities of technical divers...their drive to go deeper and grasp the answers hidden in the the dark waters of this earth. Honest and gripping revelations from the author about himself lends terrific credibility to this volume. This fascinating and illuminating book allowed me to visit some underwater wrecks and held me captive in the cramped quarters of these "steel caves". Last Dive held the power to make me look around. The book has made me examine my own diving...what do I want from the adventure and how far am I willing to go! What is the lure for me?
Rating:
Summary: A cautionary tale for divers
Review: The Rouses can't defend themselves against the self-serving bilge on this site written criticising them, and technical diving in general: they're dead. One in 54 people climbing Everest, and 1 in 25 on K2, dies trying. Technical diving is safer by several orders of magnitude, yet it is criticised and mountaineering is not because dive tourism, dive teaching and dive equipment are multi-billion dollar businesses that feel threatened when people die underwater. That's the main difference between "Touching the Void" and "Last Dive" - there's nobody saying Simpson and Yates shouldn't have been ice climbing in the high Andes because it's dangerous. The Rouses died because a large piece of ironwork fell on one of them, trapping him. That's not ineptitude but extreme ill fortune. There's heroism here, and unshaking loyalty. The author takes great care to explain that the Rouses were highly competent technical divers. The U-Who is not particularly deep for a trained tech diver, but suicide for the untrained. At the time, helium was much less well understood and exceedingly expensive. You can't judge their decisions from a modern perspective of cheaper helium and better decompression models. Sure, there were mistakes, but if you are a real tech diver and honest with yourself you will be able to look back on stupid and dangerous things you have done, and have been grateful for the long minutes on the decompression hangs to come up with an explanation for your horrified buddies. If you're you're not a tech diver, you're nowhere close to being able to criticize. The moral of the tale for today's divers, though, is that in an emergency you need the clear head that helium gives you. I believe this book is saving lives, and for that Bernie Chowdhury has earned our praise and thanks. This isn't an easy story to tell, because the risks of technical diving are, indeed, more technical than those of falling off a mountain. Some of the explanations are, admittedly, a trifle laboured. It was doubtless challenging to tease detail out of a grieving widow, shell-shocked crewmembers and fellow divers, but the author comes through with flying colours here. He made a good stab at investigating what makes a man want to take these risks. I can't agree with comments that dialogue was stilted, but I was entirely rapt in the story. I finished the book in one sitting, and was left wishing there was more.
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