Fiction: Historical Thriller
The Death Instinct by Jed Rubenfeld
On Sept. 16, 1920, a bomb hidden inside a horse-drawn carriage exploded in the heart of Manhattan’s financial district, killing dozens of people. That long-forgotten bombing was the deadliest terrorist attack in New York’s history until Sept. 11, 2001, when it became a renewed subject of curiosity.
Jed Rubenfeld has chosen the 1920 crime as the jumping-off point for his second historical thriller, “The Death Instinct.” The result is another engaging whodunit that meticulously reconstructs early-20th-century New York.
Rubenfeld brings back the stars of his earlier best seller, “The Interpretation of Murder”: Jimmy Littlemore, still the cleanest cop in New York; and Dr. Stratham Younger, older and a bit coarsened after tending to the wounded in Europe during World War I. Together they must solve the bombing while fighting off a ghoulish band of kidnappers and powerful figures intent on blaming everything on foreign-born anarchists and starting a war with Mexico.
As we approach the 10th anniversary of 9/11, it’s hard not to conclude that Rubenfeld had the more recent attack in mind: “When it happened,” Littlemore says, “it was like nothing would ever be the same. The country was frozen. Life was going to be different forever.”
