The Devil in the White City

books:


	• The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America Erik Larson Vintage, 2004 - 447 pages average customer review:based on 748 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Best read of its kind...

This book was one of the best I have ever read of its kind. The way the author mixed the trials and tribulations of the architects, designers, etc., with the atrocities committed by a psychopathic serial killer that prowled on the people coming to the fair (and others he met) was absolutely fascinating. This is a must read for history lovers and true crime lovers.

The Devil in the White City

Not great literature, not going to change anyones life, but a good story, a page-turner, very interesting. It's about a period in American history I find very compelling, and this guy is a good reporter.

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Interesting history book

I bought "The Devil in the White City" based on the synopsis on the back--a true story involving the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893, and the serial killer who used said fair to lure victims to their death. While technically this is true, I think the back-cover description is deceptive.

Alternating between the story of architect Daniel Burnham and that of con man and killer H.H. Holmes, who opened a seedy hotel near the fair and was responsible for an unknown number of disappearances, author Erik Larson fails to ever weave these two stories into a whole the way one hopes and expects. By and large, a reader could read only the chapters on Burnham, or only the chapters about Holmes, and they wouldn't be missing anything about that respective story.

Despite this somewhat uncomfortable narrative structure, "The Devil in the White City" holds one's interest, reading like the most fascinating history textbook you've never read. Both stories are informative and fairly exhaustively researched (though Holmes' story doesn't quite receive the attention that the fair story does). All in all, this was a book that was well worth reading, but one that did not quite have the pull to it that a good fiction novel does.

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great read

great read - historical fact nicely structured with an edge of the seat thriller plot

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, page 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16

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