Book #16: Thunderstruck

Thunderstruck by Erik Larson

I love nonfiction books that read like novels, and this one does just that. Larson weaves in the story of the inventor of the wireless telegraph, Marconi, with the notorious and horrifying (yet strangely sympathetic) early twentieth century murderer Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen and his lover, Ethel Le Neve. Crippen almost committed the perfect murder, but because wireless telegraphy had come along just years before, was captured as his "getaway" ship arrived in Quebec.

Larson also weaves in vignettes about notable events occurring at the same time (the publication of Peter Pan, the search for Jack the Ripper, etc.), making this book hard to put down.