Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

A good book about the Lusitainia...but not a great one.

I've enjoyed Mr. Larson's books since first reading Devil in the White City and I eagerly await each of his new works as it's published. I was especially looking forward to Dead Wake because it deals with an incident that I've long been interested in, the sinking of the Lusitania. Over the years I've read numerous books on the subject going all the way back to Colin Simpson's book published in the 1970's. Keeping that in mind I found Dead Wake to be entertaining and a joy to read as all Mr. Larson's works have been. It's informative and interesting and to someone who knows nothing about the subject it's a wonderful first look at a major event in world history. But (yes, there is a but I'm afraid), if you have time to read just one book on this subject, or want to read the definitive work on it I'm afraid that, in my opinion this isn't it. Diane Larson's book, Lusitania, An Epic Tragedy published in 2002 is for my money, the last word (at least for now) on the Lusitania. With a length almost 100 pages longer than Dead Wake Ms. Preston's book is exhaustive in it's detail of the ship, the event, and it's aftermath. She also included much more information concerning the passengers and how the survivors dealt with the sinking. Mr. Larson is an excellent story teller but Ms. Preston is an excellent historian and an exhaustive researcher and it the difference is apparent when reading both books. Just the cover of Ms. Preston's book is fascinating; it shows a Lusitania life jacket that was found five years after the sinking in a river near Philadelphia in the United States meaning that it had to drift down to the southern Atlantic, across and then up the coast of the United States to Pennsylvania, I find that sort of thing endlessly fascinating. Last but not least, I was more than a bit disappointed that Mr. Larson's book contained just one photograph, of the Lusitania in New York Harbor. I'm not sure why he chose to publish his book in this way, there are certainly doze...