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• ISBN13: 9781400080670
• Condition: New
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| | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Erik Larson | | Paperback:
| 480 pages | | Publisher:
| Three Rivers Press | | Publication Date:
| September 25, 2007 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 1400080673 | | Package Length:
| 7.9 inches | | Package Width:
| 5.1 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.1 inches | | Package Weight:
| 0.9 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 180 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
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1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Thunderstruck tells the intertwined stories of Marconi's and his wireless and Dr. Crippen and his murdered wifeAug 11, 2010
Eric Larson became famous with his bestselling novel of murder and magic in Chicago during the 1893 World's Fair.
The Devil in the White City mixed science and crime. So too does "Thunderstruck." In this fine volume author Larson recounts the story of G. Marconi and Dr Crippen in a fascinating mixture of history, biography and suspense that will keep readers flipping through the 400 pages.
G. Marconi was born in Italy. He came from a wealthy family. His mother was Irish and the lad was an autodidatic genius. Marconi would win the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the development of the wireless and radio communication. Marconi married the beautiful Beatrice O'Brien, had several children but divorced Beatrice to satisfy the lust in his wandering eye. He later married a lady from Rome. Many of the chapters in this book tell of how Marconi got his ideas and formed his wireless company. These chapters are detailed in the science and business involved in wireless telegraphic communication. Some readers will find them fascinating; others will be bored.
Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen was born into an upper middle class home in Michigan. He lived in several cities in America including St. Louis, Philadelphia and Brooklyn where he met his wife Belle. Belle was a big blowsy voluptuous woman who wanted an opera career. When this failed she went into vaudeville in the US and variety theatre in Great Britain. Dr. Crippen worked as a dentist, eye doctor and employee of patent medicine firms in America and in London. Belle was amorous and had affairs. Crippen was a milquetoast fellow who was short, thin, scholarly and well spoken and polite. He and Belle's marriage was fragile and arguments were part of their daily lives. The ill matched couple were childless.
Crippen had an affair with young typist Edith Le Neve who developed an intense love for the little doctor. She miscarried their child. Crippen murdered Belle on the night of January 31, 1910. He was expert in the use of poison. He may have strangled or shot Belle. Grisly parts of the body were located by Detective Waltere Dew and the experts at Scotland Yard who located the remains in the Crippen's coal cellar.
Crippen and his lover Edith fled England on board a ship headed for America. They were disguised as Mr. Robinson and his son (the disguised Le Neve). The captain of the ship became suspicious and used wireless ship to shore developed by Marconi to notify authorities. Detective Walter Dew took a fast ship from London and arrested Crippen as the vessel neared Newfoundland. Crippen was hanged in late 1910. Miss Le Neve was released from custody. she later married and lived a quiet life.
The Crippen case is the second most famous British murder in history only topped by the hoopla involved in the serial murder of prostitutes in 1888 by Jack the Ripper.
Due to wireless communications the whole world knew about the search for Dr. Crippen. Science had trumped crime! Marconi's scientific genius had greatly aided in the capture of a notorious murderer.
Along the way of this fascinating book we learn of living conditions and social structure in late nineteenth century London. We also learn of the growing arms race between England and Germany which would unleash the dogs of war in 1914.
Erik Larson's "Thunderstruck" is an excellent book!
Compulsively readable, if a bit done to a formulaApr 28, 2010
Erik Larson knows how to tell a ripping good yarns.
I offer that subject-verb disagreement deliberately: whether you like Larson's books may depend on how plausible you find his constructions. This book repeats the formula of his bestseller, The Devil in the White City--which mated two different, equally fascinating narratives that did not necessarily have had a lot to do with each other.
The formula consists of the development of some new technology or other expression of modernity, and murder most foul. In Devil, it was the construction of a world's fair (and all the personalities--architects, engineers, financiers, city officials, laborers--involved), and the emergence of one of the first known serial killers. Thunderstruck examines the development of wireless communication--Marconi, his many collaborators and competitors, and his personal quirks--coupled with the monstrous crime of mild-mannered, likable Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen.
Crippen's 1910 murder of his domineering, spendthrift wife, though it would fascinate Raymond Chandler and Alfred Hitchcock (who used elements of the story in Rope, Rear Window, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents), is just distant enough in historical memory that most of Larson's readers may not be familiar with it. A native of Michigan, Crippen's medical training as a homeopathist was somewhat haphazard, and he often worked as an expert/sales consultant for quack medicine companies, but no one ever had anything bad to say about him as a person.
Public opinion turned against this henpecked mouse of a gentleman only after people learned he had removed the head, hands, feet, and all the bones from his wife's body--none of which were ever found--before burying the flesh and viscera in the coal cellar of their north London home.
The hook for Larson's 400-page opus is that when the killer and his innocent mistress left England on an ocean liner, the recent invention of wireless enabled the entire world to follow reports of a Scotland Yard detective's pursuit in a faster ship, to beat the unaware couple to Quebec and arrest Crippen on arrival.
Would Crippen have been caught if an alert ship captain had not done a little detective work and alerted the authorities by wireless? Difficult to say. But Larson uses this connection as an excuse to tell the story of Marconi, which is admittedly gripping on its own: beautiful women, lavish lifestyle, British racism, scientific shots in the dark, lawsuits, competitors' sniping, death of children, divorce, and a Nobel Prize.
Larson is a facile, engaging writer who sometimes indulges in jarring metaphors and similes (carriages in a London street "gave it the look of a great black seam of coal," expenses increased "like yeast in a warm oven"). He goes out of his way to amplify interest in an inherently enthralling story ("a miscalculation that would prove costly," a "daring declaration" that would prove "most unwise"). And he struggles to legitimize his narrative ("two wildly disparate stories, whose collision . . . would exert influence on the world for a century to come").
Some members of my book club found the amalgam of plots in Devil artificial, even irritating. But most readers probably won't mind.
Fowler's review of "Thunderstruck" (a book)Mar 29, 2010
I ordered this book from Amazon.com after "leaving" my first copy of it on an airplane following a flight. When I accessed Amazon.com to determine its cost (and availability), I was pleasantly surprised to learn that a hard cover version was available at a bargain price - and with "reasonable" shipping charges.
"Thunderstruck" is a great read; a nonfiction work written in the style of a novel! I highly recommend it to anyone interested in learning about the life & achievements of Marconi, inventor of the "wireless" telegraph. I plan to read other Erik Larsen books soon!
 Not his Best WorkMar 26, 2010
After having devoured "The Devil in the White City", this book was a disappointing sleeper. Larson has a good formulae of combining two parellel plots. It worked in "The Devil.." as the plots were closely intertwined. This book did not produce the same magic. Not only were the plots widely dissimlar, but they did not blend well in the end. Perhaps the weakness is in trying to combine two widely varying genres. Those interested in mystery, may not be interested in the technicality of the wireless. Those connecting with the technical story, may not find the mystery entertaining.
I am of the former category. After a short time into the book, I started skipping all the chapters about Marconi and only reading about the murder. Therefore, I can really only comment on that sinister theme. The entire story was little more than an expanded magazine article. Only the gruesome nature of the death held any fascination. It's a pity no one ever got the whole story out of the Dr. so that Larson could reach a climactic ending.
That said, Larson is a good researcher. Reading about life more than a century ago is in itself beneficial and may be the best part of the book.
Interesting readMar 17, 2010
I bought this book because I loved "Devil in the White City." "Thunderstruck" is written basically the same with an historic event coinciding with a murder. Larson certainly did a lot of research and while I found this book loaded with the inside scoop on Marconi and the race for wireless telegraph, the murder case was not as thrilling as from his prior book. I look forward to reading "Isaac's Storm".
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