A review by alannabarras
The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton

2.0

I enjoyed chunks of this book. The overall topic was fascinating, and the author did a good job feeding out the information piece by piece to keep it engaging without being too confusing or too obvious. That being said, there were a couple scenes that felt both gross and unnecessary, one involving a 12 year old prostitute being portrayed as a capable/consenting adult (gross. no.) And one involving a bored man just... imagining his lady's *****. The first scene may be defensible through the lense of 'historical accuracy', but there are simple workarounds the author could have used to either obscure the age or not try to normalize the encounter as something that should be ok/enjoyable for the audience to read. The second scene advanced nothing, wouldn't show up in the historical record, and was just weird. Both were jarring enough while reading that I put the book down for a couple days each time to decide if it was worth finishing.
TL;DR - I may try another Michael Crichton book in future, but I will not reread this one. I wish I'd found a straight nonfiction book talking about the Great Train Robbery instead.