The Infernal Machine: A True Story of Dynamite, Terror, and the Rise of the Modern Detective

Steven Johnson's The Infernal Machine: A True Story of Dynamite, Terror, and the Rise of the Modern Detective reminds me a bit of an episode of James Burke's Connections television series. It begins at one place—Alfred Nobel developing TNT—and moves out from there through anarchy, terrorism, police methodology, and the government-law enforcement relationship as we now know it. It also offers interesting side excursions to things like phrenology and NY City police politics. And Teddy Roosevelt makes an appearance. Really, if this doesn't pique your interest, what on earth does?

Johnson's prose is crisp, bringing to life key players in this chain of events and individuals. Claims are accompanied by well0-chosen evidence. Johnson also show more manages to insert a great many engaging narrative sections that accompany the fact-based prose. In other words, this read is a treat, through and through.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Edelweiss; the opinions are my own. show less

I'm rating this highly even though it didn't read very smoothly at times simply because I learned so much about a period of American history about which I knew extremely little. The history of the evolution of anarchists in the early 20th century was of particular interest to me.

A little heavy on the details, and dragged a bit at the end. All in all a fascinating book, just not my favorite writing style.