I'd read "Devil in the White City," but had no idea Erik Larson had written so many other works of non-fiction until I read a review of "Dead Wake." This is every bit as good, perhaps better. Larson has done the sort of extensive research that has allowed him to turn real people involved in this story into human characters that resonate with the reader: For example, the daughter of a then-famous psychic who had booked a ticket on the Lusitania but was kept awake all night by voices telling her that if she got on board, she would never get off. She never cancelled her ticket, but packed and re-packed her bags in indecision all morning, until the ship finally sailed without her. Or the woman with two children in different areas of the ship when the torpedo hit, forced to choose which one to save. Larson puts these human stories in the context of the significant place in history that the Lusitania now occupies, and addresses open questions about whether the ship was left intentionally vulnerable by the British navy, in hopes that an attack on it would draw the U.S. into the war. A gripping and well-written story that I would recommend even to readers who don't typically pick up historical non-fiction.