First line:"The date was April 14th, 1912, a sinister day in maritime history, but of course the man in suite 63-65, shelter deck C, did not know it yet."
Review: My daughter gave me a copy of The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America
, knowing that I like thrillers and books about famous crimes. And Oh. My. God. This book literally gave me nightmares. The story merges two real-life tales--one is about the architect who engineered America's first World's Fair in Chicago 1893, and the other describes the work of a serial killer who was stalking the fairgrounds at the same time. Written by Erik Larson, this book was a National Book Award finalist, and it literally gave me nightmares. Maybe it's because the story is true, but I haven't read anything that creeped me out like this in a long, long time. Half the focus in this story belongs to the serial killer, H.H. Holmes; he was an unnervingly charming sociopath. Holmes was able to lure women into his murderous lair with single-minded ease, setting his sights on vulnerable women who had recently moved to Chicago from small towns across America. One after another these women--including sometimes their children and other family members--wound up being put to death in Holmes' diabolical killing rooms.
The other half of the story describes the herculean efforts of the fair's designer to get the fantastic spectacle of the Chicago World's Fair off the ground. The two protagonists of this tale probably never met, but the side-by-side juxtaposition of a world-class builder of beautiful architecture on the one hand, and a monster who functioned as a killing machine on the other, will keep you awake at night.
Here's a link to a nice interview with Erik Larson, conducted by Robert Birnbaum. Sadly, the hosting lit site, identitytheory.com, seems to have closed its doors.
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