Thunderstruck - Softcover

Larson, Erik

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553817086 ISBN 13: 9780553817089

Verlag: Bantam, 2008

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Reseña del editor:

In 1910, Edwardian England was scandalized by a murder. It seems mild-mannered American Hawley Crippen had killed his wife, buried her remains in the cellar of their North London home and then gone on the run with his young mistress, his secretary Ethel Le Neve. A Scotland Yard inspector, already famous for his part in the Ripper investigation, discovered the murder and launched an international hunt for Crippen that climaxed in a trans-Atlantic chase between two ocean liners. The chase itself was novel, but what captured the imagination was the role played by a new and little understood technology: the wireless. Thanks to its inventor Marconi's obsessive fight to perfect his machine, the world was able to learn of events occurring in the middle of the Atlantic as they unfolded - something previously unthinkable.

Commentators of the time all agreed that if not for Marconi, Crippen would have escaped. But Marconi had struggled to gain acceptance for his invention (some viewed it as a supernatural device, while distrust of foreigners remained prevalent in England and America). It was the Crippen case that helped convince the world of the potential of Marconi's miracle technology, so accelerating the revolution that eventually produced the modern means of communication we take for granted today.

With its cast of captivating characters, Thunderstruck is Erik Larson doing what he does brilliantly well: bringing together seemingly disparate yet inextricably linked lives to paint a fascinating and exciting portrait of an extraordinary age of cultural, social and technological change while evoking the darker side of human nature.

Contraportada:

The Edwardian age: a time when shipping companies competed to build the biggest, fastest vessels, the rich vied with one another with their displays of wealth, and science dazzled the public with visions of a world made wondrous.

The Murderer: Wanted for what would become one of the twentieth-century’s most infamous murders, Dr Hawley Crippen fled England on a ship bound for America accompanied by his unsuspecting mistress disguised as a boy.

The Detective: A veteran of the Ripper case, Inspector Walter Dew found himself strangely sympathetic to Crippen and his young lover.

The Inventor: Guglielmo Marconi drove himself to the brink in his obsessive struggle to perfect his visionary creation, but his ‘wireless’ would play a pivotal role in catching the killer.

Written with riveting attention to detail, narrative drive and an uncanny ability to bring a bygone era to life, this true story culminates in one of the most spectacular criminal chases of all time, as one luxury liner pursued another across the Atlantic, Thunderstruck recalls an extraordinary and largely forgotten chapter from history.

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: Bantam
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0553817086
• ISBN 13: 9780553817089
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 544