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American lightning: terror, mystery, movie-making, and the crime of the century by Howard Blum
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American lightning: terror, mystery, movie-making, and the crime of the…

by Howard Blum

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A while ago I read a small part of this in some magazine, I can't remember which one, and thought it sounded really good. I was right! This was a terrific book. Howard Blum has written a narrative nonfiction book that is one of the best I have read. An amazing story, real people, and the fact that it is all true, made it even better. October 1, 1910 the LA Times building was blown up, killing 21 and injuring many others. Billy Burns, called the American Sherlock Holmes, is called into service, to discover the perpetrators, and bring them to justice.

Clarence Darrow, DW Griffith, Mary Pickford, and others are all a part of this story.

Anarchists, water wars, unions vs. non-union men, were all suspected in the bombing. It turned out to be the leaders of the unions, "suggesting" non-union places to bomb. The men who actually did the bombing, had done over 100 bombings across the country.

Burn's life was threatened, more than once. Scandal, bribery, and violence were all part of the trial, and at the conclusion, there was a surprise. Showmanship, and theater in the courtroom played out, much like what we see on Court TV. Movies were made about each side of the case, while the case was ongoing.

I learned alot from this book, most interestingly, that Edgar Lee Masters, one of my favorite authors, was a law partner of Clarence Darrow. It really showed that there is a big difference, then as today between justice for the rich and famous, and justice for the everyday man.

The whole story was intriguing, and a very sad part of American history.

I got this book from the Library.
  joemmama | Jan 26, 2010 |
Overall, it's a good book. As others have said, it is better when the story is about the investigation into the bombing at the LA Times. Then it's gripping and a edge-of-your-seat mystery. The DW Griffith/Hollywood sections seem to belong to another book and really seem to be out of place in this story. ( )
  arianr | May 2, 2009 |
I enjoyed Blum's American Lightning, especially in his portrayal of life in the early 1900s. I felt, like other reviewers, that the first half of the book was stronger than the second half, as the detective closes in and the trial takes place. Blum had to walk the narrow line of providing biographies of three different men and then linking together in their final meeting, and I thought that he accomplished this in a readable fashion. The book was easy and quick to read, and at times I yearned for more detail, for more lingering, and more details in certain sections, especially in the early movie industry of D. 'W. Griffeth. However, the book was an entertaining, engaging read that brought to light many details in early 19th century America. ( )
  giddeon31 | Feb 3, 2009 |
  retropelocin | Nov 27, 2008 |
A Whodunit Mystery

I picked up "American Lightning" with much anticipation after recently reading Erik Larson's "Devil in the White City." Both are period pieces, narrative history, set in roughly the same time period. On the surface, Howard Blum appears to have a real whodunit mystery thriller about a terrorist bomb in 1910 Los Angeles and the intersection of the three principal characters as a result of that attack.

Those three characters include: William J. Burns (aka Billy Burns), an American Sherlock Holmes who is hired to find the culprits; D.W. Griffith, a pioneering filmmaker in early Hollywood; and Clarence Darrow, the bombastic lawyer famous for defending Eugene V. Debs for the Pullman strike and Scopes in the evolution vs. creation trials of the 1920s.

The story is about the bombing of the Los Angeles Times building, and the resulting manhunt, trial, and movie that followed. The central theme of the period, the progressive era, is the epic struggle between capital and labor. This is where I think Blum's book fundamentally falls short, he fails to really capture the reader with the bitterness of the struggle, on both sides. We never really get the 'on the ground' story, and are instead locked into these three principal characters and their surrogates. Blum never really tells us why this struggle was so hard-fought, why the anarchists so die-hard, why the industrials so ruthless.

The best part of the book is definitely the manhunt. Blum takes the reader on a wild journey up and down the west coast, to Chicago, then Indianapolis. It is fast-paced mystery writing at its finest. Blum uses real sources to back up his work, but his lack of extensive notes is also disappointing as it makes it difficult to followup on the details he explores.

Overall, the book is a decent read and well-written. However, Blum fails to capture the essence of what he characterizes as "a second civil war... and the inequities of industrial life." Unlike Larson's "Devil in the White City", Blum is unable to situate the reader into the time-period as Larson is able to do. The book is ultimately a mystery novel that is mildly entertaining with little educational value. ( )
1 vote bruchu | Nov 12, 2008 |
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Epigraph
It's like writing history with lightning. -- President Woodrow Wilson after viewing "The Birth of a Nation," the first movie ever shown in the White House.
I know it's risky, but I still write history out of my engagement with the present. -- Richard Hofstadter
Dedication
First words
As the detective made his way along a bustling Fourteenth Street in New York City that late December day in 1910, he was confident that, after a frustrating month in Los Angeles, he was at least closing in on one murderer.
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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Wikipedia in English (2)

Los Angeles Times bombing

William J. Burns

Book description

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0307346943, Hardcover)

It was an explosion that reverberated across the country—and into the very heart of early-twentieth-century America. On the morning of October 1, 1910, the walls of the Los Angeles Times Building buckled as a thunderous detonation sent men, machinery, and mortar rocketing into the night air. When at last the wreckage had been sifted and the hospital triage units consulted, twenty-one people were declared dead and dozens more injured. But as it turned out, this was just a prelude to the devastation that was to come.

In American Lightning, acclaimed author Howard Blum masterfully evokes the incredible circumstances that led to the original “crime of the century”—and an aftermath more dramatic than even the crime itself.

With smoke still wafting up from the charred ruins, the city’s mayor reacts with undisguised excitement when he learns of the arrival, only that morning, of America’s greatest detective, William J. Burns, a former Secret Service man who has been likened to Sherlock Holmes. Surely Burns, already world famous for cracking unsolvable crimes and for his elaborate disguises, can run the perpetrators to ground.

Through the work of many months, snowbound stakeouts, and brilliant forensic sleuthing, the great investigator finally identifies the men he believes are responsible for so much destruction. Stunningly, Burns accuses the men—labor activists with an apparent grudge against the Los Angeles Times’s fiercely anti-union owner—of not just one heinous deed but of being part of a terror wave involving hundreds of bombings.

While preparation is laid for America’s highest profile trial ever—and the forces of labor and capital wage hand-to-hand combat in the streets—two other notable figures are swept into the drama: industry-shaping filmmaker D.W. Griffith, who perceives in these events the possibility of great art and who will go on to alchemize his observations into the landmark film The Birth of a Nation; and crusading lawyer Clarence Darrow, committed to lend his eloquence to the defendants, though he will be driven to thoughts of suicide before events have fully played out.

Simultaneously offering the absorbing reading experience of a can’t-put-it-down thriller and the perception-altering resonance of a story whose reverberations continue even today, American Lightning is a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction.

(retrieved from Amazon Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:47:51 -0500)

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