Posting this without reading other commentary. I gave this 4 stars for the meticulous research that the author must have put into the book. Then I saw Bookpossum's post on GR about the plagiarism and was somewhat shocked that Bacon could be so blatant and shameless. Makes it difficult to really write a review of the book, which is probably why it has taken me so long to put my thoughts down.
A couple of things I was going to say before Bookpossum ruined it for me (
): I found the story fascinating (wherever the research came from) and was astonished that I'd never heard of this event before, especially as I was a bit of a war buff in my youth. I did approach the story with some trepidation, as I suspected that a large part of the tale would be taken up with extended courtroom battles over culpability. I was pleasantly surprised that this was dealt with quite briefly, though I did wonder why there seemed to be no attention given to the morons who ordered the Mont-Blanc to be loaded with the staggering amount of explosive, and that all the attention was focused on who may or may not be responsible for the collision. Now I wonder if it was just poor research on the part of Bacon rather than this issue not having been raised at the time.
So overall I'm glad I read it as the story should be more widely known. I just won't be attributing Mr Bacon with any kudos for the retelling, and I'm off to lower his star rating on GR.