Killer Show – The Station Nightclub Fire, America′s Deadliest Rock Concert

I was an operational firefighter for 15 years, followed by 10 years as a Fire Safety Inspecting Officer and, now, a Local Authority Licensing Officer. Anyone with an interest, either professional or personal, in fire safety and the consequences of a lack of fire safety should read this book. I had referred the Station Nightclub story in teaching of occupancy figures on occasion but this highly insightful book made, even me, change my attitude towards the Licensees i meet on a daily basis, some of whom are prepared to put profit before safety. Also, I have reviewed my own systems of carrying out inspections because at the end of the day, I don't want a lawyer's letter landing on my desk!

This book really stuck in my head. It takes an incredibly complicated story and weaves it together with such elegance that you can switch between technical explanations of flammable material and traumatic personal stories of loss. This book shows how the brief coverage a story like this gets in newspapers on or TV can never truly explain what happened. It's a story of human greatness and failure, a perfect storm of safety risks and very strong warning that lessons like this must not be forgotten. I am genuinely more aware of the safety of my surroundings after reading this book. It's an incredibly powerful read and a sensitive portrayal of the people who lost their lives at The Station Nightclub in Rhode Island. Highly recommended book.

Killer Show is not only an exhaustive book about the tragedy at The Station nightclub, but it's also essential reading for anyone who wants to learn how people react in the event of a fire.The author takes us not only through the history of the club and how it came to be such a death trap, but also the battle for justice by the survivors and bereaved families.This is truly an outstanding book. I read it in two sittings because I couldn't put it down; only the need to sleep prevented me from reading it all in one go. It could save your life.

This is heartbreaking to read. Very well written and contains great in-depth knowledge of what went wrong.

I had known about the fire but didn't know the facts so invested in this book,have to say it is a book you can't put down once started,john barylick pulls no punches when he starts to unravel what occurred in this terrible event. I have watched the shocking film of the fire which is mentioned many times in the book, you can't help but checking the film when a certain moment is mentioned in the book.it is a story of greed and blatant cost cutting on the behalves of the owners,how so many bad decisions escaped or had a blind eye turned towards them is difficult to believe,it makes difficult reading at times as so often the truth does in disasters like this.It must have been hell on earth ,dantes inferno if you like for the poor souls who never got out,a truly horrendous way to die,and to the lucky ones who got out to have there lives changed forever,lucky dosent sound quite the right word but it's all I can think of .At the end of the day it was a disaster waiting to happen and on that night all the pieces to that fatal jigsaw were in place. RIP to all those lost that night and strength to those that survived. Let's hope we learn from disasters like this,sadly we so often don't .