Dark Descent

By: Kevin F. McMurray

Narrated by: Michael Prichard

Length: 4 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

Two years after Titanic came another ship disaster of equal magnitude

"The most comprehensive and impressive account of the investigation of a shipwreck I've ever read. Kevin McMurray has revealed the secrets of the Empress of Ireland in a spellbinding read." (Clive Cussler, best-selling author of Night Probe!)

On May 29, 1914, after a collision in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Empress of Ireland sank in minutes, taking 1,012 passengers and crew to their deaths. The disaster shocked the world but then was forgotten with the torpedoing of the Lusitania and the engulfing cataclysm of World War I. Now, in Dark Descent, acclaimed author and diver Kevin McMurray revives the story of this forgotten maritime catastrophe.

Dark Descent takes listeners down into the frigid depths to explore the controversies of the ship's fatal night and the many attempts to salvage her contents, from the first hardhat diver sent down to recover loved ones to today's "adrenaline junkies" who risk­­ - and often lose­­ - their lives in pursuit of the perfect descent.

©2004 Kevin F. McMurray (P)2005 McGraw Hill-Ascent Audio

I had hoped for more history of the ship to be included.

The narration was fine. I just feel it would have been helpful to include more information about the ship itself.

More of a diving book than expected.

I was expecting this book to be about the Empress of Ireland. I guess it is, sort of. But in listening to the book, I found that the description of the collision and sinking seemed to take about as long as the actual collision and sinking -- about 15 minutes -- not very long. The rest of the book is about various people, including the author, diving down to the ship, either to salvage items from the ship, or just to see it. It is really a diving book. While a diving book can be interesting, especially if you are a diver, this is not what I was expecting. I should have read the description more carefully.

Once I came to terms with the fact that this is a diving book, I found the book to be a tolerable, and sometimes gripping, listen. Some of the diving stories are tragic. The book really drives home how difficult and dangerous it is to dive in and around the Empress of Ireland. As a non-diver, I was surprised to find how primitive (and often ineffective) communication systems are between divers. In this book at least, divers seem to rely heavily on hand signals and chalk-type slates. I recently listened to a cave-diving book in which it seemed clear that divers were at least sometimes able to use radio communications systems. That seems much better. Communications problems can too often have tragic consequences.