American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century

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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.

From the Hardcover edition.

What Customers Say About American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century:

This was a terrific book. It turned out to be the leaders of the unions, "suggesting" non-union places to bomb. 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. October 1, 1910 the LA Times building was blown up, killing 21 and injuring many others. 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. Howard Blum has written a narrative nonfiction book that is one of the best I have read. non-union men, were all suspected in the bombing.

Scandal, bribery, and violence were all part of the trial, and at the conclusion, there was a surprise. I was right. The men who actually did the bombing, had done over 100 bombings across the country.Burn's life was threatened, more than once. An amazing story, real people, and the fact that it is all true, made it even better. 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. Showmanship, and theater in the courtroom played out, much like what we see on Court TV. 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.

I was drawn to Howard Blum's book AMERICAN LIGHTNING when I read that Clarence Darrow was involved. I think this book gives the reader an easy and interesting way to open period of history and then one can go on to other history books for more information. "Billy" Burns, American's greatest detective and brilliant legal mind, Clarence Darrow, both ignore lots of Constitutional guarantees, this was the biggest eye opener of the book.

This part of his life tarnishes the image a little.The book is about the bombing of the Los Angeles Times building and the investigation. Other reviewers have criticized the narrative style of the book. I love reading histories of the twenties and Darrow is a personal hero.

Burn's investigation however is fun to follow. The issue of labor in the country and Los Angeles is an eye opener. The two protagonists, William J.

I enjoyed it.

Daniel Stashower's The Beautiful Cigar Girl takes a similiar celebrity artist/true crim connection, mining a real-life NY murder and Edgar Allan Poe's fictionalization to much more dramatic result. There is no shortage of good material in what has been a fertile historical period for literature recently.Mike Dash's work is superior on true crime - as is Larson's in both Devil and Thunderstruck.

The central conflict in Blum's set-up is the labor versus capital tension that escalated from striking and strike breaking to the bombing that serves as the book's central narrative. As he lays out this conflict, he is unsparing in his criticism of Otis, his trade association and his allies.

Not a lot to add to some of the other critical reviews of this book as I agree that the Burns/Griffith/Otis narrative was scattershot and made for a lot of extraneous material.One point I have not seen in other reviews that I would expound upon is Blum's clear bias, which - for me - made the book less enjoyable from the beginning. In fiction or in historical nonfiction, I would look elsewhere for a capsule of this rocky time period at the turn of the century, only forty years removed from the Civil War and in the midst of America's fitful rise to the global power that it would cement in WWII.

While they are "uncompromising," the LA Times' writing is "shrill and unyielding," and their actions to break strikes are "brutal." By contrast, the union leaders are possessed of "strident minds," Griffith's work embodies "the workingman's struggle to put a loaf of bread on his dinner table." Where Otis is "intransigent" and "belligerent," union leader Olaf Tveitmoe is "fierce," "formidable," and "intellectual."But, that is just one element. Overall, there are just much better reads out there unless you really want to hone in on this crime, this city, or these historical figures.

Many of the social dynamics here explored were better studied in Watson's Sacco and Vanzetti. In fiction, Lehane's The Given Day is a Boston-based look at the same period and in many ways the same idiom.

By no means an academic read, this book succeeds in being a engaging trip through a fascinating time in the history of Los Angeles and, on a broader scale, America. Highly recommended for those who want to learn more about this interesting place in history without relying on dense academic tomes.

This setup actually is quite reminiscent of the way the earlier suspense movies are arranged, probably quite deliberately.While the book has several engaging sections, I found the pace of the book to be somewhat slow and dragged out at points. The centerpiece of this novel revolves an explosive crime that took place in California (and later, other cities too), and follows a detective's attempt to track down the suspects while navigating through the political plays. The structure of the story is set up nicely: the scenes flips back-and-forth between the multiple locations, different players with vested interest in the case, and the detective's thoughts. I never really found it to be a "page-turner," in that there was not really a point in the book which I was eager to flip to the next chapter anxiously awaiting the next development. The chapters often stops at points which you just want to put the book down instead of flipping to the next section, and moments that the author could have used to build up suspense instead got side-tracked to character thoughts, thereby leading to a loss in momentum of the story.While not a bad read, for me this book lack excitement, especially with such title.

American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century