The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik LarsonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Dark history in the white city.
After a false start a year ago, when I couldn't get into this book, I picked it up again. I had just come across "Bloodstains" by Jeff Mudgett, the great grandson of the "devil" in this book, and thought I should read this first (I recommend reading them in this order; it gave good context for Mudgett's revelations).
Overall, this was a pretty good book, but tying together two largely unrelated storylines isn't easy to do. While both were joined by the time and place of the Chicago World's Fair, flipping from a mass murderer's arrival in the city to the architects planning the site couldn't help but feel disjointed.
In the end, the stories were joined in the grizzly nightmares and calamities during the fair. It was disturbing to learn that the disappearing women barely registered with authorities and the "devil" carried on under their noses.
It is a dark history, but interesting nonetheless.
Read my review of Bloodstains
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