Jonathan Hillstrand is out alone fishing when suddenly he loses all power in his boat and finds himself drifting out to sea without any way to contact the outside world. As he drifts he along he is left alone with his thoughts and begins reminscing about his adventures while growing up with the Bering Sea, as well as adventures as co-captian of his family fishing vessel, the Time Bandit. Meanwhile, back in Indiana his brother Andy Hillstrand has received news that his brother may be missing at sea. While Andy waits to hear news of his brother, he also thinks back to all their adventures together as crab fisherman... the world's deadliest job.

I'm not so sure how much of this book was actually written by the two brothers. While I believe all the stories are from them, I'm not sure they were actually the ones who wrote the book and phrased it all so eloquently. While I enjoyed this book, I found myself distracted by that. Having watched the show The Deadliest Catch, and by some of the stories told in the book, I just didn't feel the book really captured the story the way the brothers would really say it.
Aside from that, I was pleasantly surprised to find the book wasn't just boring detail after detail about fishing. There was a lot more story telling than I was expecting. I liked having some insight into their childhood and other aspects of their lives outside of fishing. While I believe the two brothers are excellent story tellers, I have a feeling that Malcom Macpherson guy had much more to do with the wording than the brothers themselves. I'm sure if I had never watched the show, this fact wouldn't bug me so much, but for some reason it does.

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I've been a big fan of the show since the beginning. But this book is disjointed in its narrative and deals with more braggadocio type story telling you are apt to hear in a bar late at night and even then its more about fighting, goofing off and skirt chasing than crabbing.

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If you are a fan of the Discovery Channel's show "The Deadliest Catch" then chances are you will be a fan of "Time Bandit". It was a fanatastic look into the thoughts and lives of two of the show's main co-captains, Jonathon and Andy Hillstrand, captains and owners of the F/V Time Bandit. Chock full of suspense, drama, and fishing tales it's captures everything we have come to love from the Hillstrand boys.

I will say one negative about the book though that a number of readers have already picked up on. The book was defintely NOT worded or spoken the way that we would expect Jonathon or Andy to speak. Having said that you know from watching Deadliest Catch that neither Jonathon nor Andy are authors so you would have to expect all their fishing tales, and life stories to be worded in such a way to "reel in" literary readers.

If you can get past that minor glitch than strap on your white cowboy hats, and do the crab jig because you are in for one heck of a read

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I was a bit disapointed in this book. It seemed like a jumbled mess of anecdotal thoughts and memories, and it lacked cohesiveness.

I didn't quite "get" the whole issue of Jonathan being stranded in fishing fever, and how this was supposed to be a common thread through out the book. This interwoven plot line could have easily been a single chapter. I think the book would have worked out better if each chapter was related to a certain event that has happened to the guys, and then throw in relevant memories or thoughts about the fishing life.

The only reason I finished reading the book is that I was on vacation and "stranded" on a beach for the day with nothing else to read. But it did make for a long day at the beach.

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