David Frew teaches university-level business courses, but his love for Lake Erie, where he grew up, pointed his writing career in an entirely different direction. Shipwrecks of Lake Erie: Tragedy in the Quadrangle, published by the History Press in 2014, is just one of several volumes he has written on the history of the smallest and shallowest of the Great Lakes -- which, according to his research, just might be the world's densest region for verified shipwrecks.

My own interest was sparked by a recent visit to the Great Lakes, which included a cruise on Lake Superior in a glass-bottomed boat over a couple of shipwreck sites. I found Frew's book in a gift shop on the Canadian side of Erie, and I picked it up on a whim.

It's an interesting read.

By no means comprehensive -- it would take a much larger series of volumes to detail them all -- the book cherrypicks a selection of interesting narratives about vessels that have sunk beneath the cold Lake Erie waters in the centuries that warships, fishermen, pleasure craft and transport vessels have voyaged there. Selections are brief, introducing the players and laying out the scenario so readers can easily understand what happened -- and what went wrong -- in each instance.

Frew also pays homage to Dave Stone, "the beachcomber," a man with a wealth of knowledge -- and lots of stories to tell -- about the Erie shipwrecks. (Frew compiled some of Stone's stories in a previous book.)

This would be a fun read for anyone who has a passion for the Great Lakes or even a passing interest in shipwrecks.