I read this because it is considered a 'conspiracy classic' and therefore I felt obliged to read it.

Perhaps because of its age, I found it rather run-of-the-mill, with nothing significant to add to the huge body of 'knowledge' already in this area. On one level, it suffers from all the flaws that other conspiracy books suffer from. On another level, it's just hopelessly out-dated now. That isn't the book's fault. It's just the influence of time, the giant leaps we've made in technology, and the advances in archaeology that have made this book largely irrelevant now.

I would say that this book is nevertheless a good read, but its style is pedantic and not particularly in-depth or balanced in its discussion of the 'evidence' it presents. Perhaps that is a paradoxical statement given the nature of the subject matter, but I have read similar books that take a more objective and investigative approach than this one. Likewise, I have read books that go completely the other way and make no attempt at objectivity. These books usually make for great entertainment. 'Without a Trace' went in neither direction. For its subject, it was strangely middle of the road - lacklustre, and somehow oddly tedious. ( )