In 1910, Edwardian England was scandalized by a murder- a mild-mannered American named Hawley Crippen had killed his wife and buried her remains (well, some of her remains) in the cellar of their North London home. He then went 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 of the world's public was the role played by a new and little understood technology- the wireless, invented by Guglielmo Marconi. Thanks to Marconi's obsessive fight to perfect his invention, the world was able to learn of events occurring in the middle of the Atlantic as they unfolded - something previously unthinkable. olice, jurists, and editors of the time all agreed that if not for Marconi, Crippen would have escaped. But Marconi had struggled to gain acceptance for his invention as a practical technology (many viewed the wireless as a novelty or a supernatural device, while distrust of foreigners remained prev

Author Biography

Erik Larson is a prize-winning journalist. His No.1 bestseller, The Devil in the White City, was an Edgar Award winner, a National Book Award finalist and was shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award for Non-Fiction.He lives in Seattle with his family.