Having been a fan of Erik Larson‘s writing, I had to pick up Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania. Some of the books I have read by Larson include:

Devil was the much better of the three and I hoped that Dead Wake would be in that vein. It was. While not as intriguing as Devil, it still kept me interested throughout. Sure, I already knew what was going to happen but Larson did a masterful job of building the suspense using his slow-boil technique of humanizing the doomed passengers. It is his style of writing non-fiction more like a novel that keeps his books interesting.

A lot of people complain about the minutia – the sheer volume of detail that Larson includes in his books. I however, an amazed at the amount of research he puts into subjects that usually only warrant a single sentence or paragraph in history books. Mr. Larson has done it again. This is a great read.

by Chris Doelle