Review: IF THE REST ARE LIKE DWIGGINS, then I'll buy the set.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 26, 2014
I've read 3 of Toni Dwiggins' books and have loved them all, especially "Quicksilver." It was entertaining, exciting, educational, and yet poignant.For many reasons, Quicksilver is a wonderful story. I greatly enjoy science based thrillers but I had never read anything that featured geology; the concept of forensic geology intrigued me even more...neat CSI stuff. Having read three of Toni Dwiggins' books so far, I can say all of them are a mixture of good science--LOTS of good earth science--intrigue, pathos, humor--a good bit of that too--and tragedy. And of course, lots of suspense. Quicksilver is no exception.At its heart, I think, Quicksilver is a tragedy, for several reasons. At the forefront, is the tragedy of the Shelburne brothers, so different...one having grown up feeling inferior to the other, the other aware and taking advantage. Always competing, trying to outshine the other in the eyes of their father. One obsessed with fulfilling his father's dream of finding the gold his father didn't before he died. The other obsessed with money and success. Ms. Dwiggins described the one who didn't quite live up to Dad's expectations... "Henry was a damaged soul. A wounded soul, betrayed by his father and his brother, not an asset in their world, surely not an asset in anybody's world. Hurt to the core. A man in the wrong century. And all he wanted now, here, was an apology from his brother."Betrayal of the earth is the other big tragedy, what humans did to the earth in their obsessive greed for the yellow stuff. I was totally unaware of the problem with mercury in gold mining, and Quicksilver made a huge, dramatic impact in my mind about the issue of mercury poisoning, the long-term effects, and the enormous difficulty in ridding the earth of mercury contamination. Further Google investigation of the matter enlightened me regarding the severe environmental problem with mercury which continues to this day.Quicksilver may be a fast-paced fictional thriller, but it brings to life an environmental issue and piques an interest in earth science in a way that is so entertaining that it doesn't seem as educational as it really is. All of Ms. Dwiggins' books have this characteristic. She makes learning fun.