Great and disturbing read

Don’t know how this book slipped under my radar — maybe I thought it would be too much like “Carter Beats the Devil,” but for a long time I ignored The Devil in the White City, a stunning and well-written book by Erik Larsen. It’s the story of the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, about which I knew little (other than that some brand of olive oil still bears its seal). I think I would have paid it more attention had I realized that something like the Justice League of Architects had assembled to bring it together (Burnham, McKim, Sullivan, and Olmsted). But even so, I would really expect that I would have heard that there was a thoroughly twisted psycho killer operating just blocks from the fair (with his own home-built gas chambers and crematorium), who opened his own little murderous (Hotel California/Bates Motel/insert favorite reference here) just blocks from the fair. Fairgoers check in, they don’t check out. I cannot believe I never heard of this case before. And on top of all that, you’ve got Buffalo Bill Cody, the murder of the Mayor of Chicago, and the thrilling debate between alternating and direct current — one of my favorite topics, as it happens. Extremely well-written, dramatic without going overboard, and I’d advise that you stick to the architectural side of the story if you’re reading it before dropping off to sleep, and leave the mass murder parts for brighter parts of the day.