A review by lazygal
Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II by Mitchell Zuckoff
5.0
For some reason I'm a sucker for these types of stories: Resolute, The Impossible Rescue and Lost in Shangri-La were all recent great reads. Add to that the fact that Zuckoff wrote Shangri-La and I just knew this would be a 5-star. So happy I wasn't wrong.
The heroism involved in the rescues is only matched by the will-to-live shown by the ones stranded on the ice. Even though you know what's going to happen (much as you do when you read a book about the Titanic or a biography) there's a sense of excitement and nervousness about whether or not it will work. As those stranded wait out their days freezing, with frostbitten toes and limbs, in the dark and diminishing food supplies, readers will wonder whether they, too, could survive (or would they give up early on and wander out into the cold to freeze to death). Interspersing the events with a modern search for the remains of three pilots and the downed planes gives us the opportunity to take a step back before diving back in to the events of World War II.
The heroism involved in the rescues is only matched by the will-to-live shown by the ones stranded on the ice. Even though you know what's going to happen (much as you do when you read a book about the Titanic or a biography) there's a sense of excitement and nervousness about whether or not it will work. As those stranded wait out their days freezing, with frostbitten toes and limbs, in the dark and diminishing food supplies, readers will wonder whether they, too, could survive (or would they give up early on and wander out into the cold to freeze to death). Interspersing the events with a modern search for the remains of three pilots and the downed planes gives us the opportunity to take a step back before diving back in to the events of World War II.