Thunderstruck

Preece is the chief engineer at the British Post Office when Marconi arrives in London and asks for an audience. Preece sees the genius in the young inventor and mentors him, offering the services and staff of the Post Office for Marconi in his experiments. Later, Marconi betrays Preece and forms his own company, though Preece believes Marconi would sell his patent to the Post Office. This deeply wounds Preece, who spends many years as Marconi’s foe, though he eventually helps negotiate a truce between Lodge and Marconi.

Preece is depicted as an honest and principled man. Although he is incapable of inventing working machines on his own, his talent lies in recognizing the genius around him. Once retired, he continues to work with the aim of always advancing the Post Office and Great Britain. He is loyal, dedicated, and well-educated.

Professor Oliver Lodge, a physicist at the University College of Liverpool, is the first to demonstrate Heinrich Hertz’s discovery of electromagnetic waves using a divide he designs to present Hertz’s findings to the Royal Institution in London. Lodge’s demonstration is instrumental in Marconi’s work, although Marconi refuses to credit Lodge, and they become rivals.

Had Lodge continued this research, it would have likely been he rather than Marconi who found a practical use for the wireless transmission of signals. However, Lodge suffered from an inability to focus his research to meaningful conclusions: “Whenever his scientific research threatened to lead to a breakthrough, he wrote, ‘I became afflicted with a kind of excitement which caused me to pause and not pursue that path to the luminous end’” (25).

Larson notes, “To the dismay of peers, one of his greatest distractions was the world of the supernatural,” which claimed Lodge’s attention during the months while Marconi developed his theory and mechanism for wireless communication (25). In his quest to prove the supernatural is based on scientific principles, Lodge is in tune with the cultural preoccupation with the occult that dominated London during the end of Queen Victoria’s reign.

Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen is descended from strong Methodist men and women who formed the backbone of Coldwater, Michigan, after immigrating. Born in 1862, he is nothing like his dominant grandfather, Philo, who funded the creation of the Methodist church and ruled the family through force. Weak and deemed cerebral, Crippen pursues homeopathic medicine in a lackluster academic career that includes a stint at an asylum in England. He marries Charlotte Jane Bell, and they have a child named Otto Crippen in 1889. In 1892, Bell dies of apoplexy, and Otto is sent to live with Crippen’s parents. Crippen finds himself widowed and without his child, living back in New York and working in a small practice owned by a Dr. Jeffrey. It is here that he meets Cora Turner, a 17-year-old patient of Dr. Jeffrey’s and his eventual second wife and murder victim.

Crippen is depicted as meek, subservient, and without a backbone. He is also kind and generous, earning the favor of friends and coworkers. Chief Inspector Dew, who eventually catches Crippen for the murder of his wife, “found himself liking Crippen. The doctor was gentle and courteous and spoke with what appeared to be candor. Nothing in his manner suggested deception or anxiety” (320). During his trial for murder, “witnesses described him as kind and generous, Belle as volatile and controlling. Even the women of the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild could not find anything bad to say about him” (423).

Belle began calling Crippen “Peter” in London, and many of their friends and acquaintances referred to him as Peter, with the notable exception of Ethel Le Neve, who called him Harvey.

Cora Turner is 17 when she meets Dr. Crippen, a widower at age 30. Her dream is to become a beloved opera singer in New York, and she is singular in her focus. She is shrewd and determined. When she meets Crippen, she has already convinced a merchant named C.C. Lincoln to pay for her singing lessons, lodging, and care in exchange for sex. In Crippen, she sees a weak man whom she can manipulate to pursue her dream. After their nuptials, she reveals her true name is Kunigunde Mackamotzki and that she is an orphan, though she has a living stepfather.

After several moves, including one in which Cora remains in New York alone for a time, Cora and Crippen buy a home on Hilldrop Crescent in London. Cora takes several stage names, among them Maca Motzki and Belle Elmore. It is as Belle that she joins the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild and becomes treasurer. She has, at this point, failed as a singer and variety show star and contents herself with her proximity to the arts through the guild. She and Crippen frequently dine and enjoy evenings with the members of the guild.

When Belle disappears, it is the guild that brings their suspicions to the attention of Scotland Yard, resulting in the discovery of human remains and the following manhunt.

Belle is portrayed as difficult, demanding, and insatiable. Crippen describes her early in their marriage as “rather hasty in her temper,” a trait that would come to haunt him in London as her temper only increased (55). On the night of her disappearance, Crippen says of Cora, “She said a great many things—I do not recollect them all—she abused me, and said some pretty strong words to me” (224). During Crippen’s trial, she is described as “volatile and controlling” (423).

Dr. Crippen meets Ethel Le Neve in London while both are employees of the same homeopathic medical company. Le Neve takes pity on Crippen, who finds the woman beautiful and doting, a stark contrast to his demanding wife, Belle Elmore. He rents a room for their trysts, and she falls pregnant, leading to miscarriage. After Belle disappears, Crippen and Le Neve take their relationship public, and Le Neve begins wearing Belle’s abandoned clothing and jewelry, earning the attention and ire of Belle’s friends.

After the trial, Le Neve is found not guilty of murder and released. She flees to Canada, only to return to London under a false name, where she marries and raises two children who are unaware of her relation to Crippen.

Larson suggests Le Neve is more complicated than public perception allowed at the time. She was adventurous and bold, as well as an adept writer who was wise,  witty, and capable of deep thought. In public perception, she was a lovestruck young innocent deceived by Crippen in his evil plot. Larson casts doubt on this characterization, concluding that Le Neve was more complicated than believed and unwilling to reveal anything about her story aside from the narrative of her innocence and deep belief in their love. The book’s coda suggests Larson believes Le Neve to have been more involved in the death of Belle.

Portrayed as a calm, calculating, and skilled investigator at New Scotland Yard, Chief Inspector Walter Dew is the officer responsible for investigating the disappearance of Belle Elmore. Dew is tall, strong, and blue-eyed with an impressive mustache. He has already enjoyed a long career as a law officer, beginning at age 19. He dresses well, earning the nickname Blue Serge for “always wearing his best suit on duty” (288).

Dew believes Crippen is innocent, but once Crippen and Le Neve flee London, he is inclined to search Crippen’s home again. He digs up the cellar, finding Belle’s remains and sparking a manhunt that would cross the ocean as he sails across the Atlantic to apprehend Crippen aboard the Montrose in Canada.

Dew was involved in the hunt for Jack the Ripper early in his career, beginning and ending with sensational cases that were under heavy public and political scrutiny. Throughout his investigation of Crippen, Dew found it unlikely that the man killed his wife. Even as evidence mounted, he doubted that Crippen was capable of the horrendous deeds, despite the evidence. In this portrayal, Larson allows Dew’s conflicting views to reveal a character conflicted by the evidence and his own understanding and assessment of Crippen. Dew’s inability to reconcile Crippen with the horrible reality of the body in the cellar is the heart of why the murder and the murderer captivated the public’s fascination.