Tunnel Visions by Kurt Kamm
*I received a copy of this book to review from Hay House Publishing*
Water is a precious resource and we need to protect it. When we don’t have it, it is the source of many conflicts. Many a war has been fought over water.
Tunnel Visions, by Kurt Kamm deals with the subject of water in California. Based on real events, the book starts with an explosion that happened in 1971 in the Sylmar Tunnel. When miners were working on a water tunnel to divert water to southern California, there was an explosion and many miners were killed.
The story starts here as Nick Carter tries to discover the truth about his father who died in that explosion.
Tunnel Visions weaves between Nick’s search for information about his father in the early 2000s and present day when he, a fire captain, and his girlfriend, special agent Cindi Burns, are working together to stop modern day terrorists who are threatening the water supply.
While reading this book, I learned an a lot about the water situation in California and modern day technologies of fire and tunnel rescues.
Kamm does a great job of weaving the stories together, and I was particularly fond of the Nick’s quest to find information about his father and could have read an entire story just about this!
Many elements were a convenient coincidence for a plot device (Wow! I just happened to have this map, flashlight, etc in my pocket!).
To get another opinion, I got my co-book-blogger (aka my mother) to read it and tell me what she thought. Here’s what she said:
Tunnel Visions by Kurt Kamm is a book of faction – fiction based on fact.
Before reading this book, I knew nothing about the water wars in California or about the building of the Sylmar Tunnel that channels water from northern to southern California.
Tunnel Visions describes the building of this tunnel and the methane explosion in 1971 that killed 17 miners, who were working on it.
The author weaves a narrative moving between the 1971 explosion and a fictional terrorist attack on the tunnel supposedly occurring in 2014. The novel flowed well back and forth between the two stories. A thread that ties the two events together is a firefighter in the fictional 2014 disaster, who searches for information regarding his father who reportedly had been involved in the 1971 disaster. His search leads to some startling findings.
The beginning of the story concerning the 1971 explosion was well-crafted and engaging; it was obvious that the author had done a great deal of research.
Mystery, romance, betrayal, and discoveries are all interwoven in this tale, however, the story’s ending was abrupt. And the reader was left looking for more. The story was compelling, the historical details and photo archive impressive so all in all a must read.
Overall
This book is a quick read on an interesting and new subject written by an author with obvious experience in the field of firefighting (based on the technical language used). If you are looking for a different kind of adventure story, try Tunnel Visions!
