...[a] solid, engaging mystery ... Lance recounts her efforts to unravel the mystery in a lively, entertaining, novelistic style that carries the reader along with all the verve of an Agatha Christie whodunnit—only this is a real-life 'whatdunnit.' In the Waves will work well for fans of mystery, both historical and scientific.
The author vividly describes the physics and physiology of explosions, shock waves and asphyxiation, often addressing morbid topics with bemused detachment ... The author paints for us a portrait of herself as a sleep-deprived, motorcycle-riding, cake-baking, scuba-diving pursuer of truth at any cost. We follow her in novelistic detail ... We also learn a bit of technical jargon...
Surprising new facts about the first submarine to destroy an enemy ship ... Lance delivers a lively, if often technical, description of the many experiments, models, calculations, and explosions that persuaded her and her doctoral committee that this is what happened to the Hunley ... An entertaining account of research that solved a historical mystery.
...a thorough and persuasive account ... Readers without an engineering background may struggle through Lance’s number crunching, but she has a firm command of both the scientific and historical subject matter and writes with flair. Her richly detailed account appears to definitively solve this Civil War–era mystery.
