Thunderstruck

Thunderstruck by Erik Larson is excellent. This nonfiction book follows two story lines. The first is about Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of wireless communication, while the second follows the life of Dr. H.H. Crippen, a notorious murderer. Throughout the book the two stories are intertwined, switching easily between Marconi's and Crippen's lives until near the end when their stories are forever historically connected. In many ways Crippen is a more sympathetic character than Marconi. Erik Larsen employed the same technique in his book The Devil in the White City. I enjoyed that book very much and recommend it too, but I actually felt that he covered the dual stories more seamlessly in Thunderstruck. I found myself equally interested in both Marconi and Crippen, while in The Devil in the White City I was, ashamedly, more interested in the actions of serial killer H.H. Holmes than that of Daniel H. Burnham, the architect responsible for the Chicago World's Fair. I highly recommend Thunderstruck.