Crichton departs from his usual routine with this true story of a game-changing robbery. “It is difficult,” Crichton says in his introduction, “to understand the extent to which the train robbery of 1855 shocked the sensibilities of Victorian England.” Crichton unpacks how the colorful cast of robbers very nearly pulled off the crime of the century and what it meant to 19th century London in this fast-paced account.

Crichton’s classic thriller about a deadly extraterrestrial microorganism has staying power. When the US government ignores a warning about insufficient decontamination procedures for returning space probes, the repercussions are deadly. A satellite falls and lands in a remote part of Arizona, subsequently killing everyone in a nearby town. And that’s only the beginning.