Without trying to assign blame, the author relates the circumstances surrounding the fatal dives taken by five men: Craig Sicola, Vince Napoliello, Richard Roost, Chris Murley, and Charlie McGurr. Technical divers with varying levels of skill, fitness and deep-wreck experience, the story of these men and their passion for the sport that ultimately killed them is what makes FATAL DEPTH a book that one can appreciate on many levels. The author (who is not a diver) has obviously done careful research on the sport, and he writes about the psychological and physiological effects of deep diving accurately and engagingly.

I've never climbed a mountain, jumped out of an airplane or surfed a breaking wave, but I have plunged to the ocean's depths to visit the remains of ships lost generations ago. Haberstroh captures that excitement in his prose, and has penned a book that will appeal to everyone who appreciates a spirit of risk and adventure.

9 of 9 found the following review helpful:


Sports and Death: Tales of the absurd  Mar 07, 2003 By Mike Reilly
When you think about them, all sports can seem absurd....batting a round ball 400 feet, carrying an oval ball 100 yards, climbing the highest peaks on Earth. And yet each sport attracts its own. Each attracts players who embrace a sports peculiarities, intricacies and risks. Players do it for the love of teamwork and competition, for the unique camaraderie spawned in such pursuits, and for the moments of exhilaration, tranquility and statisfaction that come when pushing toward any form of excellence.
In Joe Haberstroh's new book, "Fatal Depth," the sport is scuba diving at its extreme, riskiest level....200 feet below the surface of the cold North Atlantic, where divers scavenge the wreck of the 1950s luxury ocean liner, the Andea Doria, in search of cups, plates and saucers from the ship's china cabinets. Silly as it might seem to others, scuba divers see the Doria and its baubles as the Mount Everest of their sport.
As the title suggests, the book is also about death....the odd circumstances surrounding the deaths of five Doria divers in 1998 and 1999.
One by one, readers get to know and care about each ill-fated diver. Haberstroh uses a gripping narrative style that's sparse, swift and rich with incisive detail. The craftsmanship is particularly visible at the end of each chapter, where the author is both playful and poignant.
The heart of the book, though, belongs to its ultimate survivor, Dan Crowell, skipper of the charter boat that escorted all five divers to the Doria. Crowell is an enigma, but an unrelentingly interesting one.
Unlike many sports-book authors, Haberstroh resists the temptation to romanticize Crowell and his crew of "big-boy" divers.
Unlike many authors examining untimely death, Haberstroh also resists the temptation to blame or scorn either the five divers or the crew that led them to the abyss.
Instead, he leaves it to readers to judge where fault lies....or whether there is fault when dealing with risks of such a sport at its highest, or in this case, deepest level.
It's those murky depths that help make "Fatal Depth" as rare and valuable a find as a first-class saucer from the Doria herself.

21 of 25 found the following review helpful:


boooooring!  Jan 01, 2005 By animal "cryptoslut"
I actually had to forcefully keep my eyes open to finish reading this book. If you have read The Last Dive or Shadow Divers, you know that these books both share an immediacy and drama that reads like a novel. These are up-all-night page-turners that will leave you breathless. Fatal Depth was written like a summary of the author's short magazine articles about the events described; the book reads like the Coast Guard's accident files, lacking utter poignancy or interest. There is no attempt at defining the divers' characters or motives; as a result, we find ourselves feeling sorry for the victims but all the while unmoved by their two-dimensional profiles. Save your money and instead buy the aforementioned books. On a side note, this book's editing, as has been noted elsewhere, is aweful, inexcusable given the major publisher and the author's credentials

15 of 19 found the following review helpful:


Content interesting. Proof reader should be shot!  Mar 25, 2004 By Adam Wilson
As an avid wreck diver, I have read nearly every book available on the Andrea Doria. This book is similar to Deep Descent in that it documents some of the diving deaths at the Doria, however, this book goes into more details on the recreation of what may have happened to some of these unfortunate divers. I enjoyed the book but found it to be one of the worst examples of sloppy publishing I have ever read. I found nearly 50 examples of misspelled words, incorrect grammar, and sentences that made no sense because key works were missing. ( by misspelled words I am referring to words that will appear correct to a spell check program but are spelled incorrrectly in the context they are used. eg. the word "lot" will not be caught as a misspelled word but when you mean to write "lost"... you get the picture. A case of the authors mind running faster than his fingers. I would be surprised if anyone actually proof read this, and if it was proof read Joe should get his money back for the service. A 5 year old would have done a better job. Even more shocking considering that Joe Haberstroh is a reporter and columnist.

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