truepenny | Review: Zuckoff, Frozen in Time

Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II by Mitchell Zuckoff

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

[library]
[audiobook]

Zuckoff was doing his own reading, and I did not like him as a reader, which may have influenced my generally meh opinion of the book.

During World War II, a cargo plane was lost over Greenland. One of the B-17s sent out to search for it wrecked on a glacier, and its crew was trapped out there for four months. In the efforts to rescue them, a Grumman Duck disappeared with three men aboard. So Zuckoff is telling the saga of the B-17 crew's survival and rescue, and then also the modern day expedition (in which he participated) to find the Duck and repatriate the remains of the three lost men.

Zuckoff is a competent author, and his material was (potentially) fascinating, but I just didn't find myself fascinated. He alienated me by banging the We Must Bring Fallen Heroes Home! drum at every opportunity--which is not to say that I think we shouldn't, or that I don't think these guys were heroes, but there's a difference between acknowledging that and being sentimental about it, and Zuckoff is definitely (endlessly) sentimental. I deeply dislike and distrust sentimentality, so I was at odds with the author basically through the whole thing.

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