The Deep Dark

Disaster and Redemption in America's Richest Silver Mine

By: Gregg Olsen

Narrated by: Gary Roelofs

For nearly a century, Kellogg, Idaho, was home to America's richest silver mine, Sunshine Mine. Mining there, as everywhere, was not an easy life, but regardless of the risk, there was something about being underground, the lure of hitting a deep vein of silver. The promise of good money and the intense bonds of friendship brought men back year after year. Mining is about being a man and a fighter in a job where tomorrow always brings the hope of a big score.

On May 2, 1972, 174 miners entered Sunshine Mine on their daily quest for silver. Aboveground, safety engineer Bob Launhardt sat in his office, filing his usual mountain of federal and state paperwork. From his office window he could see the air shafts that fed fresh air into the mine, more than a mile below the surface. The air shafts usually emitted only tiny coughs of exhaust; unlike dangerously combustible coal mines, Sunshine was a fireproof hardrock mine, nothing but cold, dripping wet stone. There were many safety concerns at Sunshine, but fire wasn't one of them. The men and the company swore the mine was unburnable, so when thick black smoke began pouring from one of the air shafts, Launhardt was as amazed as he was alarmed.

When the alarm sounded, less than half of the dayshift was able to return to the surface. The others were trapped underground, too deep in the mine to escape. Scores of miners died almost immediately, frozen in place as they drilled, ate lunch, napped, or chatted. No one knew what was burning or where the smoke had come from. But in one of the deepest corners of the mine, Ron Flory and Tom Wilkinson were left alone and in total darkness, surviving off a trickle of fresh air from a borehole.

The miners' families waited and prayed, while Launhardt, reeling from the shock of losing so many men on his watch, refused to close up the mine or give up the search until he could be sure that no one was left underground.

©2014 Gregg Olsen (P)2014 Gregg Olsen

Great book. Terrifying. So so narration.

The book was good. A really great account of a truly terrifying circumstance. I watched a video documentary and got to see the faces of the survivors telling the same stories as they’re told in the book. The details given in the book are a lot more illustrative so it’s a really intense story.

It would have been a lot more immersive if the narration wasn’t so poor. Very staccato. Lots of odd pacing and undulations in the readers cadence. The only bummer about the experience.

Great Story, absolutely terrible narratiom

I found this to be a great story about a tragedy I was never aware of. Mr. Olsen obviously did a tremendous job in his research for this book. However, this is one of the three worst narrators I've ever heard (I have heard roughly 150 Audible books). He couldn't pronounce the name of a popular Indian tribe, he would start and stop repeatedly, and he doesn't know how to end a sentence. It's sad. I feel that having this narrator did the survivors and their families a great disservice. It's a well researched and written story. It should have been told MUCH better.

devastating and beautiful

the deep dark illustrates how important your coworkers, community and family are in a crisis. anyone who's worked in an underground mine will find this true story a chilling cautionary tale.

Excellent Book, Sad Story

This book is excellent and full of great detail. The true story of the 1972 silver mine fire in Idaho was a disaster that resulted in the people and their town to be changed forever. I recommend this book to anyone. Just be warned that there are graphic parts pertaining to the condition of those that were killed.

The narration is horrible.

Compelling Story Marred by Narration

I have read articles and watched documentaries about the Sunshine Mine disaster and hoped that this book would add depth and create a fuller picture - it succeeded! This is an excellently written and well-researched book. Unfortunately, as an audiobook, it is mostly ruined by the narrator’s strange, overwrought performance. It became so bad I was actually annoyed and couldn’t finish. The mispronunciations and odd cadence are tolerable, but the breathy, melodramatic manner in which the dialogue is read is way too distracting.