Book Review: Thunderstruck - Highly Recommend

Listening to the audio version of Erik Larson's splendid narrative history, Thunderstruck, was like watching a master puzzler build a 3-dimensional structure. The pieces came together to form far more than a flat representation of an image. The full picture of the story was built from the foundation up until it came to life in a grand, dynamic tale that felt so real, the reader seemed to be living in historical moments and physically present at key junctures. The end result was an intriguing exploration into a true crime that intersected with the history of scientific achievements.

Although the beginning was a bit hard to follow (weaving back and forth between the tales of Dr. Hawley Crippen and a young inventor, Guglielmo Marconi) it was worth the investment of patience because, like in a puzzle, there is a bit of confusion before the images begin to take shape more fully. Larson is a master at this genre. He sucks readers in with his narrative style and provides just the right amount of information to flesh out the historical setting and characters.

Dr. Crippen is a mild-mannered physician from a small town in Michigan. He marries a strong-headed operatic-hopeful. When his wife's career fails to get off the ground, the two move to England where she can pursue burlesque theater. Guglielmo Marconi is a driven young man with an intense interest in scientific possibilities for wireless communication. The lives of these two different individuals converge when Marconi's wireless invention aids in the manhunt for the alleged murderer, Crippen.

Even if you are not generally drawn to historical accounts of scientific advancements, Larson's explanations create a fascinating pull, without bogging down in minutia. Fans of Larson's famous book, The Devil in the White City (a book about a serial killer at work during the 1893 World's Fair), will relish this book as it, once again, merges true crime with its unique place in time. The book reads like a novel while presenting meticulously-researched details of history. I should warn that the crime committed is rather gruesome and the descriptions bring it to life fairly vividly, so the squeamish might wish to experience the tale in book form, so they can skip through the pages of gory details. Still, I loved plunging into the historical time and setting. It was thrilling, towards the end, to think about the narrow escape Marconi and his wife made by not boarding the maiden voyage of the Titanic as they had intended. It was a wonderfully engaging, as well as educational, audio-book experience.