Jonathan Koan's Reviews > The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I

This is an unusual book for me, as I don't often read Non-fiction. Certainly not as much now as I did in college before I started the Youtube Channel. I picked this book up because I had heard a little about it. It certainly has a well produced pitch.

The book is divided into four parts, each building to its thesis. It primarily follows Rudolf Diesel and his family as he goes from being a curious boy to a talented engineer to an incredible designer and businessman. It also follows his bizzare disappearance and tries to provide an explanation for what happened.

The book also has a few minor characters that it follows, particularly Wilhelm and John D. Rockefeller, who are believed to be suspects in the murder, as well as Winston Churchill, who was integral to building England's navy and may have been involved in another capacity.

The first part is very interesting, as it documents Diesel's early life, moving from country to country. This is very standard Biography style writing, but I found the political history and circumstances fascinating. We also see a little about the backstory of Rockefeller and Wilhelm II here. The information about Bismarck and his political abilities was great here.

The second and third parts document Rudolf Diesel's bulding and designing of the Diesel engine. I cannot lie...this section was mostly boring for me, and it lasts for 170 of the 330 pages (or half the book). If you are an engineer, you will probably find this information fascinating. If you are a technically minded person, you also might find these sections interesting. The only thing that really kept me interested here was knowning we would get to the mystery at the end and the tidbits about political updates happening, which I found fascinating (here is when the Churchill stuff comes into play).

The fourth part of the book is by far the most interesting and exciting portion of the book. This is when the book became a page turner for me. This is the section about the mystery and potential answers to what happened to Diesel. Brunt presents an argument that actually seems to follow the logic C. S. Lewis uses for "Lord, Liar, Lunatic", although the argument here is "Accident, Suicide, and Murder". I thought for sure that Suicide would be the ultimate answer presented, but Brunt has a terrific twist that literally had me say "what? WHAT?!" out loud. He then spends the next chapter or so outlining the logic behind this answer. (Although be forewarned, there isn't a DEFINITIVE answer in the book...but the evidence does lay out a compelling case as to what happneed).

Overall, the book has incredibly interesting sections that I loved, and it also has sections that I found mindnumbingly boring. I would actually recommend that most people just skim or even skip parts 2 and 3 to get to the good stuff in part 4 after they've read part 1. I might be controversial for that. I'll give the book a 7 out of 10.