Erik Larson

Larson builds narrative history by braiding two stories that share a place and a moment. The Devil in the White City sets the 1893 Chicago world's fair against a serial killer working a few streets away. Dead Wake follows the Lusitania and the submarine that sank it. The Splendid and the Vile covers Churchill's first year through diaries and household detail instead of through strategy. He works entirely from documents and says he invents no dialogue, which is worth stating because the books read like novels.