Description

‘An irresistible page-turner that reads like the most compelling, sleep defying fiction’ TIME OUT

One was an architect. The other a serial killer. This is the incredible story of these two men and their realization of the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, and its amazing ‘White City’; one of the wonders of the world.

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 and gardens.

The killer was H. H. Holmes, a handsome doctor with striking blue eyes. He used the attraction of the great fair – and his own devilish charms – to lure scores of young women to their deaths.

While Burnham overcame politics, infighting, personality clashes and 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 are brought to life in this mesmerizing, murderous tale of the legendary Fair that transformed America and set it on course for the twentieth century . . .

Publisher Review

Bursting with so much vitality you half expect it to jump right out of your hands * Yorkshire Evening Post * An irresistible page-turner that reads like the most compelling, sleep defying fiction * Time Out * Captures the spirit of an America bursting with pioneering drive...a gripping book * Independent on Sunday * Erik Larson tracks [H H Holmes] with practised journalistic skill...Highly readable * Sunday Telegraph * Fuses history and entertainment to give the dramatic effect of a novel...this truth really is stranger than fiction * The New York Times *