Lightning Strikes

Judging solely by the glowing reviews in leading newspapers, which is as good a yardstick as any, the new book American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century [Amazon; B&N] is quite the tale. USA Today called it "history electrified," excerpted the book, and even gave author Howard Blum a Capote comparison. Meanwhile, the Dallas Morning News deemed the book a "thumping-good drum roll of narrative history." The glowing reviews are accumulating.

I happen to put a lot of stock in newspaper reviews and insist on doing so until every last newspaper is dead. Not every true crime title can garner even one bit of professional praise, and harsh reviews abound. This book has inspired so much laurel-waiving that it belongs high on the To-Get list before I even look beyond the genre and the adverbs and figure out the exact subject. 

 

Comments

[MarkDaniels]

Saw it in the bookstore and it caught my eye. Seems like a good fit with the other Historical True Crime I've been reading.