Rating: 
Summary: Don't expect "Shadow Divers"
Review: I picked up Chowdhury's "Last Dive" after reading --and thoroughly enjoying-- Robert Kurson's excellent book, "Shadow Divers." (see my other reviews) If you read and enjoyed Kurson's book, be forewarned: this book isn't in the same league.
In "Shadow Divers," Chris Rouse and his son Chrissy were among the divers involved in the quest to uncover the identity of a sunken German U-boat discovered in 230 feet of water off the coast of New Jersey. They (along with another diver), lost their lives during the six years it took to unravel the mystery.
The Rouses were interesting characters. Seemingly always at each other's throats, they gave me the impression that watching them was sort of like witnessing a latter-day "Two" Stooges. No one doubted that they loved one another, but their antics and belittling comments to one another while aboard dive boats had become legendary by the time they took their final dive.
Since the subtitle of this book is "A Father and Son's Fatal Descent into the Ocean Depths," I sort of expected that the book would be about them. Actually, it's focus was seemed to be more on Chowdhury.
Bernie Chowdhury was a friend of the Rouses, and also participated in the extreme sport now known as "technical diving." (As opposed to recreational diving, which imposes some pretty strict limits on depth and time for safety's sake.) Indeed, Chowdhury himself very nearly died, and was lucky to avoid being permanently crippled as the result of a dive accident. He writes rather extensively about this incident... and many others, involving other friends and acquaintances --thus filling a pretty significant fraction of the book's 356 pages.
Don't get me wrong. The Rouse family IS discussed at length. But it seemed that the author was way too quick to go off on a tangent that all too often seemed like he was writing his own memoirs.
As an aside, though I found the deaths of Chris and Chrissy to be a sad case of lives cut short, I can't bring myself to consider the case "tragic." These guys (and those like them), lived life on the edge. They took chances, played the odds, and lost. This was not a toddler with leukemia. They may have been nice guys, good to their friends, and decent, upstanding people, but their actions almost ensured their own obituaries ...and in reading Chowdhury's epilogue, it seems that quite a few people seem hell-bent on joining them.
Rating: 
Summary: Divers will like it; others may bog down....
Review: This is ostensibly the story of the last dive of a father and son dive team, the Rouses. But that is actually a small part of the book, at the end (and followed by another 50 pages or so of the author's ruminations).
What's not so good: Although there is a lot of detail for divers to (hopefully) learn from, others may bog down in the amateurish writing, repetition, and tedious and unimportant detail. Frankly, I got to a point where I felt like just finishing it would be an achievement. Clearly the author needed an editor to throw away about a third of this book; it would have been twice as good. It should have been better organized as well.
What's good: a lot of information about the technical history of diving, what is involved in cave diving, wreck diving, and why those activities are so dangerous (nitrogen narcosis, how and why of the bends, silt, darkness, obstructions, complexities of different gas mixtures, equipment options, decompression...). All very interesting. Lots of material on how and why many divers have died pursuing the "sport" of technical diving, and many side stories illustrating what's smart and what's not.
And yet, all this -- and the many pages devoted to the author's self-analysis after his own accident -- does not seem to have helped him as much as he claims. He has now gone on to hang-gliding, and plans to return to deep technical diving despite his doctor's warning. What's next? Free climbing? Besides the lack of good editing, that was the biggest flaw in the book: he still doesn't get it. With a few exceptions, virtually all these people died because they were overconfident and underestimated the danger. You only have to do it once. If you do, it doesn't matter how many other times you were meticulous.
Rating: 
Summary: Amasing Story
Review: This story is a adventure that went wrong and a 'must read' for all divers and underwater enthusiasts.
Steve Fox Whale Shark Specialists of the Caribbean
www.DeepBlueUtila.com
Rating: 
Summary: A diver's must-read
Review: As a wreck diver and technical diver in training, I jumped at the opportunity to read The Last Diver. I could not put it down, partly because of the gripping narrative, and partly because I had done so many of the things writting about in the book. But unlike the divers in the book, I am not a cowboy and I am SAFETY all the way. The lesson of the book is that both recreational AND technical diving is still relatively safe as long as you obey the rules of the game. The divers who lost their lives in the book The Last Dive all violated the rules - big time. Do that, and sooner or later you are going to pay the price. Its a lesson that we all need to learn again, whether we are doing our first dive or our thousandth.Dive safe, D. Keith Lamb
Master Diver
Rating:
Summary: Essential Reading
Review: Essential reading for any budding deep or wreck diver. This book is not a technical diving manual, but rather an account of what not to do when you go diving. The book is well written and you will have difficulty in putting it down. Well worth the money and essential reading for any diver with intermediate experience.
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