There were a lot of confluences between the story of Marconi and the sensational murder of Belle Elmore. All the same, I just couldn't get terribly excited about this book. It was very slow to start, for one thing, and then there were endless chapters of Marconi trying and failing to get wireless communication off the ground, falling out with various Edwardian scientists, and then making a tiny step forward that Larson made very dramatic. I especially dislike his way of ending sections in this manner: "It seemed at the time a prudent decision." Or "But his anger, for the moment, seemed of no consequence." I'd like to get on with the story rather than be teased all the time with ominous foreshadowing. The murder of Belle Elmore and the resulting manhunt were more interesting, but I felt like I had to wade through a lot to get there. In his notes before the Sources, Larson says that he wishes he could have included all the fascinating information he gathered about Edwardian society. I wonder if he'd included all that and had written a more general book about Edwardian society and the Crippen murder without feeling so tied to Marconi's story, it would have been a better read.