The Devil in the White City

This historical account brilliantly weaves together the story of a serial killer with the Chicago World's Fair. It is chilling and authentic.

It is a book that deep dives into a historical event, in this case, the 1893 World Columbian Exposition. Check. It is a nonfiction book that reads like a gripping thriller, in this case, the serial killer H.H. Holmes, who built a three-story building featuring secret rooms, torture chambers, and a crematorium. Check. Chicago leaps off the page. By the end of the book, I was able to envision the massive exposition, its hundreds of temporary buildings, all white colored, interlaced with ponds and canals.

Much like that exposition helped raise Chicago up from its Great Fire, so I could… show more.

I am not usually a big fan of nonfiction, but with Erik Larson I make an exception. I have read six of his nonfiction works and the one fiction audiobook. The Devil in the White City was the first one I read and my favorite by far. Some of his books are a bit heavy with facts: weather minutiae in Isaac's Storm and air sorties in The Splendid and the Vile. Somehow he manages to make architectural plans and flower planting almost as interesting as the serial killer on the loose in Chicago during the 1893 World's Fair.

This one… show more.

I love true crime, and Erik Larson is a pro. He takes two vastly different but significant events in our world’s history and brings them together. I’ve spent some time in Chicago, and I could easily picture the places he spoke of while recalling the details of the things that went wrong at the World’s Fair, as well as the activities of H.H. Holmes.

I immersed myself in his tails and was with him until the very last page. It was fascinating to learn of all the inventions that were first unveiled at the World’s Fair, as well as the… show more.

I couldn’t put down this book that traces dual stories of the architect who designed the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and a serial killer who chose his victims from among those who flocked to the city.

One of my great-aunts served as a nurse at the World’s Fair infirmary, and I remember hearing about the fair and her experiences there—how wondrous and magical it had all seemed to a young woman from a small town.

I couldn’t help but think of her when I read about the very dark side of the fair, too. Erik Larson is one of… show more.

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.