A true story of love, murder, and the end of the world?s ?great hush?
Crown
November 2006
On Sale: October 24, 2006
Featuring: Guglielmo Marconi; Hawley Crippen
480 pages ISBN: 1400080665 EAN: 9781400080663 Hardcover Add to Wish List
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 criminal chases of all
time.
Set in Edwardian London and on the stormy
coasts of Cornwall, Cape Cod, and Nova Scotia,
Thunderstruck evokes the dynamism of those years when
great shipping companies competed to build the biggest,
fastest ocean liners, scientific advances dazzled the public
with visions of a world transformed, and the rich outdid one
another with ostentatious displays of wealth. Against this
background, Marconi races against incredible odds and
relentless skepticism to perfect his invention: the
wireless, a prime catalyst for the emergence of the world we
know today. Meanwhile, Crippen, “the kindest of men,” nearly
commits the perfect crime.
With his superb narrative
skills, Erik Larson guides these parallel narratives toward
a relentlessly suspenseful meeting on the waters of the
North Atlantic. Along the way, he tells of a sad and tragic
love affair that was described on the front pages of
newspapers around the world, a chief inspector who found
himself strangely sympathetic to the killer and his lover,
and a driven and compelling inventor who transformed the way
we communicate. Thunderstruck presents a vibrant
portrait of an era of séances, science, and fog, inhabited
by inventors, magicians, and Scotland Yard detectives, all
presided over by the amiable and fun-loving Edward VII as
the world slid inevitably toward the first great war of the
twentieth century. Gripping from the first page, and rich
with fascinating detail about the time, the people, and the
new inventions that connect and divide us,
Thunderstruck is splendid narrative history from a
master of the form.
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