Customer Reviews

Deep, Dark, and Dangerous: Adventures and Reflections on the Andrea Doria

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In 1989, Gary Gentile published the classic book on the Grand Dame of the Sea. Andrea Doria: Dive to an Era has been in print continuously ever since, and has sold thousands of copies worldwide to wreck-divers, armchair explorers, ocean liner memorabilia buffs, and the public at large. The book continues to be one of his best-selling titles.

Dive to an Era is still available. In that profusely illustrated volume, the author chronicled the complete story of the Italian ocean liner after she sank, from Harry Trask's Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of the vessel sinking, through the numerous salvage schemes, commercial diving operations, and photographic expeditions, to the author's personal exploits in the recovery of china, glassware, jewelry, works of art, and the ship's bell - exploits that spanned fifteen years, from the author's first dive on the wreck in 1974.

Deep, Dark, and Dangerous picks up where Dive to an Era ended. This volume covers another fifteen years of personal exploration of the wreck, from 1989 to 2004.

In these action-packed pages the reader will explore vicariously the deep compartments and dark passageways where danger abounds, anxiety is commonplace, fear is palpable, and death is literally a breath away.

In addition to the historic recovery of great works of art, the author recounts in exacting detail the slow but inevitable collapse of the hull, and examines the flood of fatalities that occurred in recent years.

For those who cannot or will not dive on the Andrea Doria, reading Deep, Dark, and Dangerous is the next best thing to being there.

The book includes 69 color photos, 6 black and white photos, and 4 deck plans (which show penetration paths that are described in the text).

It was a gift to my son in law and he said it was great.

Gary Gentile's original book, "Andrea Doria: dive to an era" was an excellent recollection of the original wrecking of the vessel, and early attempts to dive it.

Unfortunately, the follow up, "Deep, Dark and Dangerous" is not quite so good. Although it still has some engaging tales to tell, the narrator gets side tracked into too much grinding detail. In particular, his attempts to describe how to reach parts of the wreck swimming in a three dimensional environment render the narrative tortuous from time to time.

There are some fascinating parts of the book that follow on from and amplify earlier stories presented in the first book, but it would have been better to re-release an updated version of the first book rather than try to ambitiously spin a second book out of limited material.