The Death Instinct TLC Book Tours Review

About The Death Instinct

• Hardcover: 480 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover (January 20, 2011)


A spellbinding story of war and love, revenge and terror, and the darkest secrets of the human soul, by the author of the million-copy bestseller The Interpretation of Murder.

Book Description (provided):  New York, 1920. World War I is over. But the Roaring Twenties have not yet arrived. Factories are closing, families are losing their homes. Jobless men are forbidden to drink by the new Prohibition laws. The streets of Manhattan teem with seething resentments and inarticulate passions. Wall Street … explodes. It is the most destructive and deadly terrorist attack ever committed on United States soil. 
Caught in the blast are war veteran Stratham Younger, police detective Jimmy Littlemore, and the beautiful but secretive Colette Rousseau. A mysterious trail of evidence, together with a series of inexplicable attacks on Colette and a secret buried deep in her past, lead the three on a harrowing but thrilling journey from Paris to Prague, from the roof of the world’s tallest skyscraper to the secret underground vaults of the U.S. Treasury, from the Vienna home of Sigmund Freud to the halls of Congress in Washington, D.C.  As the frightening, seemingly disjointed pieces of the puzzle come together, Younger and Littlemore unravel Colette’s secret – and the shocking truth behind the terror in Wall Street.

Set against the backdrop of the devastating Wall Street bombing of September, 1920 – a real historical event that remains unsolved to this day – The Death Instinct expertly blends fact and fiction, killing and passion, suspense and adventure in a page-turning thriller about the hidden depths of our most savage instincts.

My Take on the book:  WOW what a book!  This book was really intense.  I love a good mystery and even a bigger fan of historical fiction with a twist of mystery.  I knew very little about this 1920's event and was blown away by all the provided background information.  I didn't realize that the bombers were never identified.   The author did his research on this one!

The three main characters were very well defined and drew me into their mysterious trail.   The author used historical knowledge, fictional twist and turns as well as the use of  Sigmund Freud,  Madame Curry and the end of WW1 to weave a terrific tale of pure international historical fiction.

If you are looking for light reading, this is not the book for you, in my opinion, of course!  I underestimated the book from the beginning. I was taking it as a light read and after about page 30 or around Chapter 3 I had to put the book down for a few days until I had more time to concentrate on book fully.  I usually read several books at once but this one required all of my attention.   I know that I'm leaving you with very little information on the book but it is so deep and full of historical, literary goodness that I know that I could not do the book justice by telling you anymore than you have already read!  Don't ya love a mystery???

I have never read his other novel, the international bestseller, The Interpretation of Murder. Have you?   It is now on my to-read list! 

 

Jed Rubenfeld is the author of the international bestseller The Interpretation of Murder. He is a professor at Yale University Law School and is one of the country’s foremost experts on constitutional law. He wrote his undergraduate thesis at Princeton University on Sigmund Freud. He lives in Connecticut with his family.

Disclosure: Thanks to TLC Book Tours for providing me a copy of the book with my participation in the book tour.  Click to check out what other bloggers are saying about this book! I hope that they give you more content!