The Death Instinct

Starred review from November 8, 2010
The 1920 bombing of Wall Street, the most deadly act of terrorism in the United States until the Oklahoma blast of 1995, provides the framework for Rubenfeld's excellent follow-up to The Interpretation of Murder. The sweeping plot details the baffling hunt for those responsible for the death and injury of more than 400 New Yorkers. Numerous intriguing subplots snake out from the main story line, several of which bring such historical figures as Marie Curie, famous for her radium experiments, and Sigmund Freud, who had a significant role in the previous book, to life. Rubenfeld deftly wends his way through the shifting landscape with a historian's factual touch and a storyteller's eye for the dramatic and telling. Readers will be enthralled as Dr. Stratham Younger, the hero of The Interpretation of Murder—aided by his beautiful fiancée, scientist Colette Rousseau, and Det. James Littlemore—manages to solve the Wall Street bombing, something that the real authorities never did.

Who can forget the September terrorist bombing of the New York financial district? Yes, 1920 was quite a year. Rubenfeld's novel revisits that other bombing of Wall Street, linked to Italian terrorists, which casts innumerable allusions to that eerily similar New York bombing on September 11, 81 years later. Narrator Kerry Shale is the perfect choice to deliver this complicated story. His varied repertoire of voices weaves a love story that involves seedy national politics, scientific breakthroughs, and WWI. Shale perfectly creates the many varied characters that bring this novel to life. The bombing is a turning point in the lives of three characters, who include Sigmund Freud and Madame Curie. M.S. (c) AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine