'How can someone write an entire book about a single diving incident?' I wondered as I read the introduction. Next evening I decided to read another chapter. It wasn't until 2am that I turned the last page.
This book is a howdunit. We are told in the first few pages that it is about a father and son both dying in a diving accident, but it is not until the end that we find out exactly what happened.
The story is intricately built through recursive levels of flashback, a technique I found frustrating at times - one level of recursion is enough for me. Having begun the last dive of the title, we are taken back through the biography of the family concerned, the author's own life story and numerous diving incidents.
It's all woven together to present a partial history of technical diving, though I am not convinced about some of the author's pet theories on diving physiology.
I was amazed that the victims had been diving for only four years, but then, they had made almost 800 dives in that time. Once you get past the stereotypical American gung-ho approach, the people involved are really not that unlike many divers I know.
The Last Dive could well become a classic of technical wreck-diving, just as The Darkness Beckons has become a classic of cave-diving.
It makes good reading for any diver, and should be compulsory for those enthusiastic newcomers rushing through their technical qualifications.
John Liddiard