When most people think of disasters at sea and sinking ships, their minds immediately drift to the sad story of the Titanic. Thanks to James Cameron, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, the tragedy will forever live in popular culture. But if Erik Larson has his way, another ship – the Lusitania – will also earn a spot in your memory.

Larson’s new book, Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania (Crown Publishing), chronicles the last – and tragic – voyage of the Lusitania as it attempted to cross from New York to Liverpool in May 1915. During the trek, the RMS Lusitania, a British ocean liner and the world’s largest passenger ship at the time, was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat. As a result, 1,198 passengers and crew – including many Americans – were killed, and more than 600 souls were never found. To put it in a historical perspective: 1,500 people died when the Titanic sank.

Ten months into World War I, the Lusitania embarked on its scheduled journey despite warnings that U-boats would be patrolling the waters; Germany claimed it would sink enemy ships (which at the time included Britain, as the United States was still a neutral country) crossing waters that had been designated as a “war zone.” The passengers and crew of the Lusitania sailed comfortably, assuming the British Navy would protect the passenger liner if it encountered danger, as it had for other ships. Germany, however, was true to its word and took down Britain’s unescorted passenger liner.

What happens next is a small blip in the history books, and the intimate details of this tragedy are often eclipsed by other World War I events. This is where Larson shines. As he has done in his previous best-selling books, Devil in the White City and In the Garden of Beasts, he’s able to provide readers with detailed and personal accounts of this moment in history, which many consider the catalyst for America’s entry into World War I. Dead Wake is composed of letters, journal entries and documents from passengers, officers, bystanders, survivors and others involved in the tragedy. Combined, these add another layer of history to the Lusitania’s tragic story.

Whether or not you enjoy reading about history, you have to respect the time and research Larson put into writing this book, as well as his creative method of storytelling, known as narrative nonfiction. Larson weaves between viewpoints throughout the story, including that of President Woodrow Wilson, grieving the loss of his wife and holding on to America’s neutrality in Washington, D.C.; Walther Schwieger, captain of the U-20 boat that sank the Lusitania; the British intelligence unit that intercepted and decoded enemy messages in the secret Room 40; and numerous passengers of the ship, including famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat, female architect Theodate Pope, and Mrs. Arthur Luck and her two sons from Worcester, Mass.

The story of the Lusitania is deeper than the waters in which it sank, and we now have Larson to thank for sharing it.

By Kimberly Dunbar