In one of Crichton’s earliest books, he retells the adventure of professional, upper crust burglar who spends a year and a half masterminding the heist of gold bullion bound for British troops fighting in the Crimean War of 1854. What makes this book so readable is the expert story telling. Crichton mixes fictionalized conversation with testimony from Pierce’s trial, sprinkling the text with fascinating information about trains, British class consciousness, dog fights, and Victorian criminology among other topics. January 2007.