Thunderstruck
Book description
A true story of love, murder, and the end of the world’s “great hush.”
In Thunderstruck, Erik Larson tells the interwoven stories of two men—Hawley Crippen, a very unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator of a seemingly supernatural means of communication—whose lives intersect during one of the greatest…
Why read it?
2 authors picked Thunderstruck as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Erik Larson is a master at combining crime and history with perfect pacing and interweaving narratives.
While best known for Devil in the White City, Thunderstruck, the next book in his bibliography, released in 2006, deserves as much acclaim. Larson does a brilliant job of combining the stories of the hunt for murderer Hawley Crippen, and that of Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor and electrical engineer, responsible for the wireless telegraph, which revolutionized mass communication.
The real star of the book is Larson’s vivid descriptions that bring to life turn-of-the-century London and the lives of the two men at the center…
From Andrew's list on narrative non-fiction that interweave crime and history.
The crime discussed in this book was once so famous that Detective Chief Inspector Walter Dew titled his autobiography I Caught Crippen even though he’d also been involved with the Jack the Ripper murders. Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen was an American from Michigan—my home state has more than a few notorious citizens—who stood accused of murdering his second wife in London and then fleeing from the police with his mistress. Larson does what he does best, combining a murder case with a history lesson, and weaves in the story of Guglielmo Marconi’s invention of the wireless alongside Crippen’s flight from…
From Rebecca's list on crimes you've never heard of.
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