Frozen In Time

Title: Frozen In Time
Author: Mitchell Zuckoff
Source: from publisher for review
Rating: ★★★★☆
Fun Fact: The Greenland coastline is longer than the distance around the equator.
Review Summary: Another awesome example of narrative non-fiction from Zuckoff, packed with adventure, drama, and a personal touch that makes the reader feel like the know the people involved.

During WWII, planes routinely used Greenland as a staging point to get from the US to Europe. From this story, it seems as though planes almost as routinely ended up crashing due to the wind and poor visibility! In Frozen In Time,  a B-17 participating in a search and rescue mission crash lands with all men on board miraculously surviving the crash. A Gruman Duck amphibious plane which is part of a daring rescue mission crashes as well and since none of the men on board survived, the plane is never retrieved. Frozen In Time tells both the story of the many daring rescue attempts necessary to retrieve the men aboard the B-17 and the modern day story of the hunt for the lost Duck.

After reading Mitchell Zuckoff’s Lost in Shangri-La, I jumped at the chance to review another one of his true stories about a daring rescue and Frozen In Time didn’t disappoint. The book was clearly very well researched. The personal details the author had collected about everyone involved made me feel deeply invested in their survival. The precise details shared about every aspect of the rescue mission served as a reminder that this was a true story, as did the amazing black-and-white pictures included throughout.

A few parts were a little hard to follow. Sometimes details about several different people were given in consecutive paragraphs. This could become both boring and hard to keep track of, but a great “cast of characters” section in the back helped me remember all the different people involved. It also would have helped to have specific dates at the beginning of each chapter instead of just month and year. However, these were very minor flaws and I spent most of the book deeply engaged, wondering if the Duck would be found and if the men on the B-17 would ever be rescued. The author does an amazing job of conveying the fact that this was a true story with stunningly heroic people involved. I would highly recommend it to fans of narrative non-fiction or incredible adventure stories.

This has been a TLC book tour. For more reviews, check out the other tour stops, Goodreads, or Amazon.