The Devil in the White City

Erik Larson is known for his masterful ability to combine meticulous research with rich prose to breathe life into history. This book, with intersecting narratives of a serial killer and a brilliant architect set at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, painted such a living picture for me that I still felt stuck to the canvas even when I wasn’t reading.

I learned about astonishing true events and characters I barely knew existed. The contrast between the great inventors on the grand stage of the fair and the killer haunting its shadow was superbly done.

I first read this book in 2019, when I was living in Chicago, as a way to get to know more about the history of the city.

It draws together the lives of two very different men, both inexorably linked the Columbian Exposition in 1893 – architect Daniel Burnham and serial killer HH Holmes. I re-read it this summer and again found myself more transfixed by Burnham’s attempts to build a thing of greatness than by Holmes’ lurid crimes.

It gives you a brilliant sense of the city, of Burnham’s genius and of Holmes’ madness.

I never leaned toward crime stories, but this true telling of America’s first serial killer, while simultaneously recounting one of the grandest expositions in American history, was too good to put down.

I was shocked by how quickly I devoured this book. It’s the closest you can get to time-traveling to 1890s Chicago. It’s the near-impossible feat of building the greatest World’s Fair of all, and also the gruesome story of a killer building a “murder house” and luring single women into it.

This is the book that inspired Martin Scorsese and Leonardo Dicaprio to almost make it a series… show more.

Erik Larson lays out Chicago’s efforts to remake its seedy, 1880s image with a World’s Fair cast in all white. Sadly, a serial killer lurked. 

Devil in the White City kept me engaged by conjuring up that feeling of dread you have when you know something monumental is about to be undone. The scene-setting put me smack in the middle of the Fair preparation as organizers toil against pressing deadlines. So many young women coming to help launch the spectacle. I could feel my heartbeat quicken as the dueling storyline introduces yet another of Herman Mudgett’s 27 victims. 

Best yet… show more.

The contrasts in this historical non-fiction book, starting with the title, is why this book makes my list.

It takes you back to another time in America and intersects the worlds of inspiring world fairs, an expanding industrial city (Chicago), and innovative architecture. Larson also intersects two other worlds: the good and bad of humanity and he does this through the stories of America’s best-known architect at the time Daniel Burnham and the nation’s first known serial killer, H.H. Holmes who uses Burnham’s World Fair as his hunting ground. Whoa!!!

You’ll put this book down with some epiphanies and affirmations… show more.

I’ve read this book twice and listened to it on audiobook twice, and it never loses its appeal. Erik Larson's nonfiction books are so suspenseful that they seem like fiction, and The Devil in the White City is one of his best.

Larson is an expert researcher who finds one-off details that he sprinkles through his books to delight readers. This story of serial killer H.H. Holmes and the Chicago World's Fair twists and turns like a corkscrew. While visionaries and businessmen were building a gleaming White City to attract tourists to Chicago, cunning H.H. Holmes was building a booby-trapped… show more.

Another nonfiction book and the only one on my list not set in England, Devil in the White City takes readers to Gilded Age Chicago and the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. 

Great storytelling and incredible research introduce readers to the gleaming white exposition city and its ultimate juxtaposition, the World’s Fair Hotel just west of the fairgrounds. The hotel was built by Henry H. Holmes, a young and handsome doctor, who was also a sadistic killer. 

Holmes lured women to the hotel, a place complete with a dissection table, a gas chamber, and a crematorium. The horrors of the… show more.

Larson takes us through two storylines. The first was of the 1893 World's Fair, explaining the politics, planning, personalities, and dynamics that made it so. The second story that parallels happened only blocks away is the story of one of the most notorious serial murderers, H.H. Holmes. This book teaches us about the time's atmosphere, mores, and norms. The wonder of the new technological era increased immigration and a mixture of all types of people in this new city. On the one hand, inspired things occurred, and concurrently, some of the most disturbing planning for homicides could only have happened… show more.

The Devil in the White City tells the terrifying story of the cold-blooded serial killer, H. H. Holmes. His killing spree peaked during the World’s Columbian Exposition (The Chicago World’s Fair) in 1893 when dozens, if not hundreds, of missing fairgoers, met their end in Holmes’s “Murder Castle.” By telling the parallel story of the fair’s development and operation, Erik Larson paints a vivid picture of time and place, setting the stage for Holmes’s murderous career. The optimism and achievement of America’s gilded age, embodied by the Exposition, compared with the ruthless efficiency of H. H. Holmes, provides a narrative… show more.

The Devil in the White City transported me back in time, to the 1893 World’s Colombian Exposition in Chicago. I love the way the author wove together the history of the exposition and the story of a serial killer who got away with murder, just miles away from the lavish world’s fair. Erik Larson is a skillful storyteller and the juxtaposition of art, history, and horror made this book hard to put down.