Reviewed by Seth Clark Walker

Erik Larson, author of 2003’s runaway nonfiction bestseller The Devil in the White City, has an affinity for large, sweeping characters that embody some of life’s most vexing dualities: reason vs. passion, the empirical vs. the ethereal.  In Devil, Larson juxtaposed the lives of master architect Daniel Burnham and doctor-cum-murderer Herman Mudgett, alias H.H. Holmes, to showcase the brightness and hope of America’s Gilded Age against the darkness and deceit lurking within late 19th century society.

In Thunderstruck, Larson once again returns to two grand characters for his exploration of the dual.  His subjects are another doctor-cum-murderer, Hawley Harvey Crippen, whose taste in women is as questionable as his homeopathy, and Guglielmo Marconi, an unlikely Italian inventor whose breakthrough technology – the wireless – is ultimately used to help apprehend Crippen. 

Thunderstruck is set in early 20th century Edwardian England, during the rule of King Edward VII, and while the book does not occupy a stage as grand as Devil’s, the action is comparable.  Larson uses his trademark style of short, punchy chapters to whip readers through the unlikely courtship between bug-eyed Crippen and his lusty, fame-hungry wife, Cora, through their predictable downfall and Crippen’s murder of her, and through his escape from England via ship with his lover, all with Scotland Yard in pursuit.  The rise of Marconi’s wireless provides an intellectual though somewhat less stimulating backdrop for the book, a science-based narrative that is another Larson trademark.

With Thunderstruck, Larson addresses flaws that plague his earlier books.  Sort of.  The book begins like the ship that is so critical to his final narrative: slow and methodical in the early going, yet eventually gaining steam.  Mercifully, the early pacing is faster than the bogged-down openings to Devil and Larson’s first bestseller, Isaac’s Storm.  His dual narratives meet at a strong and clear intersection and drive toward the close.  The one flaw Larson fails to address is his lust for purple-and-fact-laden digressions – they litter the book, add unnecessary length, and subtract from the narrative drive. 

Anecdotal digression aside, Larson delivers what his readers expect of him: confident writing, exacting language, research so thorough it livens the senses, and a psychologist’s bent for character examination.  Larson’s mother was an amateur mystery writer and student of the Crippen case, and Larson inherited her love of a great mystery.  Though Thunderstruck drags at times, the book is a triumph, a soulful and entertaining immersion into a period just out of reach.