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Audio CD Description Author Erik Larson imbues the incredible events surrounding the 1893 Chicago World's Fair with such drama that readers may find themselves checking the book's categorization to be sure that The Devil in the White City is not, in fact, a highly imaginative novel. Larson tells the stories of two men: Daniel H. Burnham, the architect responsible for the fair's construction, and H.H. Holmes, a serial killer masquerading as a charming doctor. Burnham's challenge was immense. In a short period of time, he was forced to overcome the death of his partner and numerous other obstacles to construct the famous "White City" around which the fair was built. His efforts to complete the project, and the fair's incredible success, are skillfully related along with entertaining appearances by such notables as Buffalo Bill Cody, Susan B. Anthony, and Thomas Edison. The activities of the sinister Dr. Holmes, who is believed to be responsible for scores of murders around the time of the fair, are equally remarkable. He devised and erected the World's Fair Hotel, complete with crematorium and gas chamber, near the fairgrounds and used the event as well as his own charismatic personality to lure victims. Combining the stories of an architect and a killer in one book, mostly in alternating chapters, seems like an odd choice but it works. The magical appeal and horrifying dark side of 19th-century Chicago are both revealed through Larson's skillful writing. --John Moe

Customer Reviews will keep your interest This is a different book, I don't know any other way to say it. A cynic might think that an author wanted to write about the Chicago World's Fair and fearing no one would read it, threw in a serial murderer like a tv producer during sweeps. The two stories both occur largely in Chicago and at the same time, but otherwise the link between the two is pretty thin. It is still two great stories, but it has the feel of a badly edited movie that leaves you with tennis match neck (constanly jerked from one side to the other). The stories themselves, however, are quite fascinating, and since each stands on it's own they must really be reviewed as separate entities. The story of the world's fair was fascinating to me; I knew little of the history and was in awe of the drive and vision of the midwestern movers and shakers that were able to pull this off while not losing the magic. The serial murder story was whatever the opposite of comic relief is. Broadly the story is familiar to anyone who has ever caught the Ted Bundy, etc. story. This has the charm, if one can use that word here, of taking place in a less scientific and media dominated era, and the nuts and bolts of the detecting is cruder than today but easier to follow. Good beach/weekend read. Engaging, but... THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY tells two equally entertaining tales of Chicago in the Gilded Age: the story of the planning, contruction, and operation of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 and the story of an early American serial killer, Dr. H. H. Holmes, operating at the time of and at the fringes of the fair. The stories, told in alternating chapters, are inherently engaging, and the clear writing style also helps to hook the reader and make this book a fairly easy read. That being said, it's time to quibble. First, the juxtaposition of these two tales does seem somewhat forced, as at least one previous reviewer has noted. Just because two stories happen to take place at the same time in Chicago doesn't necessarily mean that they have much to do with one another. Second, if ever a book cried out to be heavily illustrated, this is it. The World's Fair was by all accounts a visual marvel, and repeated reference is made to the fact that an offical photographer was employed to document the Fair from inception to closing. The paltry selection of photographs reproduced in the soft cover edition definitely left one wanting more. Finally, and most seriously, key episodes in the tale of Dr. H. H. Holmes are, as it turns out, complete fabrications of the author. True, two murder scenes are plausible reconstructions, but that is all they are. They are not fact. In a book that is promoted as non-fiction and a history, the disclosure of the author's methods should have been included in a brief preface, not buried in an afterword. I dislike investing hours reading something only to find out after the fact that it is not quite what I thought it was. Parallel Dramas of Creation & Destruction in 1890s Chicago. "The Devil in the White City" creates an image of Chicago 1890-1895 by telling parallel tales of events that galvanized the city, then the second-largest in the United States, as it raced headlong into the 20th century. One event was the 1893 World's Fair -or the World's Columbian Exposition in honor of the 400th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of America. The Fair was the product of 3 years of work by the nation's leading architects, engineers, artists, and thousands of workmen under the guidance of Chicago architect Daniel Burnham, the Fair's tireless Director of Works. Burnham would set the aesthetic tone, recruit the artists, and build his dream city to stand for 6 months, May-October 1893, during which time visitors in record-breaking numbers would be introduced to products and technologies, like large-scale use of alternating electric current, that would soon transform the daily lives of millions. At the same time, not far from the Fair's Jackson Park site, a physician and con artist, Herman Webster Mudgett, had taken the name of Henry Howard Holmes, made a success of his pharmacy business, and had a mind to make a macabre profit from the upcoming Fair. Holmes was constructing a city block, nicknamed "The Castle" by neighbors, which was to house retail stores, apartments, offices, and a hotel for travelers who had come to Chicago for the Fair. But this dark, labyrinthine, building held as many secrets as its creator. Among its curious features were a soundproof airtight vault with gas jets controlled from Holmes' personal rooms, a crematorium, a basement lime pit, and dissection facilities. H.H. Holmes would become America's first documented serial killer, whose appetite for power and the adoration of young women would only be undone by his lust for money, but not before he apparently murdered dozens of people. Author Erik Larson alternates Daniel Burnham's struggle to create a World's Fair to rival Paris' 1889 Exposition, stories of the Fair's key personalities, such as landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead, engineer George Washington Gale Ferris, Chief of the Midway and future Congressman Sol Bloom, painter and Director of Functions Francis Millet, with the simultaneous, sinister machinations of H.H. Holmes. Generally, the subjects alternate, one chapter after the other, but author Larson has worked another parallel story into the book, although sporadically: That of Irish immigrant Patrick Prendergast, the assassin of Chicago Mayor Carter Henry Harrison. I found Holmes' story more compelling than that of the Fair, but the Fair chapters contain far more information, and they effectively convey the sense of anticipation and stress that nagged Burnham and his artists, as they were pressed to build a city in not nearly enough time, with too few materials, through harsh weather conditions, while one of the nation's greatest economic depressions loomed. The truth is that there is limited reliable information about Holmes and his misdeeds. For dramatic and narrative purposes, Larson describes a couple of murders in more detail than could really be known. And he occasionally interjects unfounded speculation about Holme's childhood. Apart from these minor points, I have to commend Larson for sticking to the facts of Holmes' case and avoiding the fabrications and exaggerations that I've seen elsewhere. But this does make Holmes' story less sensational than it could be and, indeed, was at the time. But the book's most glaring shortcoming is its lack of illustrations. "The Devil in the White City" would have greatly benefitted from an insert with photos of the World's Fair, the individuals involved, and of Holmes' "Castle".