After reading the Perfect Storm by S. Junger, I was casting about in the sailing/adventure section and found this gem. I remembered vague readings from the newspapers about the sinking of these ships and that it seemed a really dangerous business, crabbing in the North Bering Sea. Mr. Dillion explains it better than any other article I've read. He puts a human face on those missing fisherman. The book isn't quite as much as a thriller as "Perfect Storm" is but I was hooked and stayed up most of the night to read the first half.

The second half of the book is the formation of public policy and the making of the laws regarding safety at sea. Its a bit dryer but since I voted for some of these politicans I'm glad that they did their job. That aspect of the story wasn't reported very well in the local news. It is interesting but not the page turner that the first half of the book is.

Still whenever I buy King Crab legs in the grocery store I say a prayer for the saftey of the fisherman.

Anyway if you liked the "Perfect Storm", or any of the other disaster at sea books, "Fastnet Force 10" etc., you'll like this one.

This book is a fascinating look into a tragedy, and is hard to put down once it gets going. Dillon does a good job of covering all the 'angles' about this industry, the people involved, & these 2 particular boats. He doesn't have the same flair that Sebastian Junger does for detailed background stories that really bring the reader into the lives of those he's writing about, but that's setting the bar pretty high as I could hardly put "The Perfect Storm" down. This book is interesting in a different way, because this disaster was so much more of a mystery. Because it happened in calm seas, was relatively close to land, and they were well-equipped boats, they really had to start from zero to figure this whole thing out, & that's what pulls you along in the reading of the book. It also concentrates much more on the industry as a whole, although that last part of the book is a bit less interesting, it does a good job of rounding out the story & giving the reader info you're curious about by the time you've learned how the commercial fishing industry operates.

Once I got past the scene-setting of the individual seamen who were inevitably the ones who drowned (sorry for that burst of cynicism, but the more touching the personal tale, the more likely they were to be among the lost), the book gets down to the business of telling us about the whole cycle of commercial fishing in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. The miracle of this story is that Dillon captures both the personal and the intimate details of the individuals, but he also nails the macro-issues of the industry, its evolution and practices. As an added bonus, he gives us the inner chambers of our government and a cold-eyed view of how laws are actually enacted, a civics lesson that we should read and re-read. Great book, all around. A brilliant feat by Dillon, who makes it all flow so naturally that you don't even know you're reading virtuoso journalism of the highest order.