The Devil In The White City

Title of the Book: The Devil In The White City
Author: Erik Larson
Number of Pages: 390
Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆
Review:
      America's First recorded serial killer and out Eiffeling Eiffel. This novel takes you back to the 1890s in Chicago, Illinois. Paris had just hosted the "Exposition Universelle" where the amazing Eiffel tower was revealed. Americans, unhappy with the attention France was getting, decided to do something about it. Erik tells the converging tales of the "World's Columbian Exposition" and a man sometimes called H. H. Holmes. It has all the facts, information, and quotes of a biography with all the flow, wonder, and suspence of a fiction piece.

      While the lure may lie in the scandalous murders, a lot of the book focuses on the fair. From it's attention seeking beginnings, through its rocky construction, to its open and close. You find yourself rooting for all the men fighting tooth and nail, time, money, and weather to make their mark on the world.

      Just when you you're getting tired of all the struggle, Larson drops you into the life of the posterboy for psychopathy. A successful con artist and bigamist, Holmes, starting with his humble beginning in Gilmanton, New Hampshire. Mudgett, the boy's given name, was interesting. He was often alone reading things such as Edgar Allen Poe and very likely dissecting live animals for fun. He married and left a lady at 17, attended med school at 18, and traveled with work before rooting himself in Chicago at 26. This being when and where his secret murder spree started.

      I recommend this book to anyone who likes history. As someone who usually avoids nonfiction, I was a little hesitant about this read; however, it reads like any of the other stories I enjoy. If you've ever wondered why and how things like the ferris wheel, the pledge of allegiance, and other surprising things came to be, you'll have to give this a read.