The Devil In The White City By Erik Larson (Paperback, 2004)

Product Description

The Chicago World's Fair of 1893 & its amazing ' White City' was one of the wonders of the world This is the incredible story of its realization & of the two men whose fates it linked one was an architect the other a serial killer The architect was Daniel H Burnham the driving force behind the White City the massive visionary landscape of white buildings set in a wonderland of canals & gardens The killer was H H Holmes a handsome doctor with striking blue eyes He used the attraction of the great fair
- & his own devilish charms
- to lure scores of young women to their deaths While Burnham overcame politics infighting personality clashes & Chicago's infamous weather to transform the swamps of Jackson Park into the greatest show on Earth Holmes built his own edifice just west of the fairground He called it the World's Fair Hotel In reality it was a torture palace a gas chamber a crematorium These two disparate but driven men together with a remarkable supporting cast of colourful characters including as Buffalo Bill George Ferris Thomas Edison & some of the 27 million others who converged on the dazzling spectacle of the White City are brought to life in this mesmerizing murderous tale of the legendary Fair that transformed America & set it on course for the twentieth century