Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction comes the enthralling story of the sinking of the Lusitania

“Both terrifying and enthralling.”—Entertainment Weekly
Thrilling, dramatic and powerful.—NPR
Thoroughly engrossing.—George R.R. Martin


On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era’s great transatlantic “Greyhounds”—the fastest liner then in service—and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack. 

Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger’s U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small—hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more—all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history.

It is a story that many of us think we know but don’t, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour and suspense, Dead Wake brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President Woodrow Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love. 

Gripping and important, Dead Wake captures the sheer drama and emotional power of a disaster whose intimate details and true meaning have long been obscured by history.

Finalist for the Washington State Book Award • One of the Best Books of the Year: The Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Miami Herald, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, LibraryReads, Indigo

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Published Mar 22, 2016

480 pages

Average rating: 8.06

126 RATINGS

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Community Reviews

frannie-puckett
Mar 17, 2024
10/10 stars
I could not put this book down.
raeallic
Oct 09, 2025
8/10 stars
Incredible storytelling. I really hope they make this into a movie, following the lives of so many of the ships passengers, the captains and political figures of the time, really broadened the story and added depth. I felt a deep sympathy for those on board the Lusitania, and the events that followed.
Cathy W.
Sep 26, 2025
10/10 stars
Fabulous book! Factual and well-written!
miguel
Oct 15, 2024
8/10 stars
Erik Larson has a unique way of making non fiction books read as if they are fiction. Knowing very little about the Lusitania, this one started slow but the second half was one I could not stop until it was done.
Gias_BookHaven
Apr 13, 2024
6/10 stars
This was a re-read for me. But with his new Civil War book that's been published I don't see myself reading anymore of his books.

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