The Great Train Robbery (Michael Crichton, 1975)

I've never read a bad Michael Crichton novel, and I've read a lot of them. Having been impressed with the movie version of The Great Train Robbery, I picked up the source novel, and it was every bit as good. In fact, it was an ideal companion piece which expanded on the movie's story and filled in a lot of historical detail about the real robbery and about Victorian London in general.

Crichton's book is less a novel than a novelised account of real events - a bit like a TV docu-drama - with facts about the period (the mid 1850's) and the robbery sitting side-by-side with authentic dialogue - fiction informed by the copious research via newspaper stories etc carried out by Crichton. One comes away from a Crichton read feeling distinctly inferior to the highly gifted author, yet one is also left reeling from a thrilling story. 

I found having watched the movie, reading the book was equally as pleasurable, despite knowing what was coming. Indeed, Crichton writes the book telling you the outcomes of the robbery, but the joy is in the detail of just how Edward Pierce carried out his audacious plan, and in the detail of Victorian London. There are interesting asides about the Crystal Palace, the vaguaries of London society for criminals, women and policemen, and about a massacre during an Indian uprising. At no point does the author let the pace of the plot waver when elucidating on these matters. The Great Train Robbery is as good a Crichton novel as Disclosure, Jurassic Park, Next, Rising Sun, Sphere, Congo, The Andromeda Strain, Binary, A Case of Need, The Lost World, State of Fear and Airframe... all I've read to date!