It was an explosion that reverberated across the country—and
into the very heart of early-twentieth-century America. On
the morning of October 1, 1910, the walls of the Los Angeles
Times Building buckled as a thunderous detonation sent men,
machinery, and mortar rocketing into the night air. When at
last the wreckage had been sifted and the hospital triage
units consulted, twenty-one people were declared dead and
dozens more injured. But as it turned out, this was just a
prelude to the devastation that was to come.
In
American Lightning, acclaimed author Howard Blum
masterfully evokes the incredible circumstances that led to
the original “crime of the century”—and an aftermath more
dramatic than even the crime itself.
With smoke
still wafting up from the charred ruins, the city’s mayor
reacts with undisguised excitement when he learns of the
arrival, only that morning, of America’s greatest detective,
William J. Burns, a former Secret Service man who has been
likened to Sherlock Holmes. Surely Burns, already world
famous for cracking unsolvable crimes and for his elaborate
disguises, can run the perpetrators to ground.
Through the work of many months, snowbound
stakeouts, and brilliant forensic sleuthing, the great
investigator finally identifies the men he believes are
responsible for so much destruction. Stunningly, Burns
accuses the men—labor activists with an apparent grudge
against the Los Angeles Times’s fiercely anti-union owner—of
not just one heinous deed but of being part of a terror wave
involving hundreds of bombings.
While preparation is
laid for America’s highest profile trial ever—and the forces
of labor and capital wage hand-to-hand combat in the
streets—two other notable figures are swept into the drama:
industry-shaping filmmaker D.W. Griffith, who perceives in
these events the possibility of great art and who will go on
to alchemize his observations into the landmark film The
Birth of a Nation; and crusading lawyer Clarence Darrow,
committed to lend his eloquence to the defendants, though he
will be driven to thoughts of suicide before events have
fully played out.
Simultaneously offering the
absorbing reading experience of a can’t-put-it-down thriller
and the perception-altering resonance of a story whose
reverberations continue even today, American
Lightning is a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction.
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