19th Century Venture Capital; or, Dr. Crippen's Fantastic Adventure in Smoldering Passivity

Erik Larson must be really indecisive. He has a habit of writing "two books in one", alternating between seemingly unrelated stories from one chapter to the next. But like good sitcom plots, they come together in the end in a way that, even if clearly foreshadowed all along, are interesting and satisfying none the less.

Thunderstruck is a combination entrepreneurial business development story -- Guglielmo Marconi's obsessive creation of a successful "wireless" company, utilizing family wealth connections (his mother was a Jameson, of Irish whiskey fame) and venture capital methods barely distinguishable from modern practices -- and true crime novel. The true crime is that of Dr. Hawley Crippin, who would be in the running for the title of Most Passive-Aggressive Husband in History. Dr. Crippin, who worked for and was often handsomely compensated by various patent medicine companies, was short, wore thick glasses, and was henpecked to a remarkable degree by his larger-than-life but weakly talented singer-actress-wannabe wife. He eventually formed a connection with his secretary and decided to stand up to his wife once and for all. He appears to have hit her over the head to kill her, then dismembered her corpse in a most horrific manner. Her skin and organs were found buried in Crippin's basement a few months after her disappearance, but her head, hands, feet and all her bones were never located.

By the time these portions of her remains were located, Crippin had fled London with his secretary, who was dressed as a young man. The fugitive couple was already aboard an ocean liner to America when Scotland Yard figured out what was happening. But by a combination of faster ships, the wireless technology that Marconi had sold to the shipping lines, an alert captain, and a press that knew a good story when it saw one, the whole world watched a police chase worthy of O.J. Simpson that went on for nearly two weeks. In the process, people began to realize that wireless technology might be useful for more than keeping ships at sea informed on the news of the day.

The Crippen story is gripping stuff, but I've never been much of a true crime fan. Maybe I'm too cynical, but I'm never that surprised by the depths to which fallen man will sink. Although I've never been a big reader of business stories, either, the Marconi tale really drew me in, perhaps because of Larson's talent for pulling together the hard facts of wireless technology with Marconi's sad personal story and the business impacts of the social norms among scientists of the day. (19th century scientists tended to hold the pure pursuit of knowledge above crass business interests, preferring free disclosure of scientific discoveries, and looking down on types like Marconi, who wasn't formally schooled as a scientist and who preferred to guard his trade secrets from his competitors.)

If you're pressed for time, just read the Marconi chapters. The Crippen story is easy enough to piece together in the end.