What do a murder, an invention and an ocean liner have in common? All share an enthralling "CSI-type" tale in Erik Larson's latest narrative non-fiction, "Thunderstruck." Guglielmo Marconi was attempting to replace the enormous undersea communication cable with the invention of wireless radio early in the 1900s. Hawley Harvey Crippen was an American doctor living in England who was reduced to selling patent medicines for a living. Larson combines the story of the inventor's experiments with the story of Crippen's murder of his wife and flight from England on a luxury ocean liner. Crippen killed his difficult, domineering wife with poison. He then skinned her, burned parts of her body and buried the rest in his cellar. He later convinced his lover to flee to America in the hopes of escaping prosecution. The two stories are totally unrelated until the end when the new wireless technology is used to aid Scotland Yard in the pursuit of the criminals. The story is fast-paced with many interesting character portrayals. While the book reads like fiction, Larson was able to incorporate many historical events of the day and time. Erik Larson has written a similar book in "Devil in the White City" and a historical account of the Galveston hurricane of 1900 with "Isaac's Storm."