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A review by karamaek
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
5.0
I really enjoy murder mysteries and I think historical non-fiction is fun so I was excited to read The Devil in the White City. I was not disappointed; in fact, I enjoyed this book very much.
In my opinion, the book started out a bit difficult to follow. There were so many people introduced was starting to wonder if I should be keeping notes or flagging names as annotations on the Kindle but soon the author narrowed focus to a few key people and the story was much easier to follow. I again wish for some notes in the last fourth of the book when the author was concluding the lives of all of the characters. I honestly did not remember who some of the folks were!
Yet this book made me long to have lived in Chicago in the last decade of the 1800’s.
Oh, to have been a fly on the wall in the Rookery when the Architects held their planning meetings!
Or to have witnessed the first turn of the Farris Wheel! That horrible screeching would have been a noise for the ages. Though I knew the Farris Wheel was not going to be a huge failure, I did have that moment of passing thought “will it fall off and roll down the street taking out everything in its path?!”
I am able to imagine 700,000 people wandering the World Columbian Expedition as I have experienced many, many Minnesota State Fairs. It was comical to me to imagine the attendees dressed in their Sunday best when that is starkly different from what is warn to modern day fairs.
I immensely enjoyed how the author would describe someone or some event without giving away the most important details, giving the reading that “Oh! That’s how that came about” moment once the name was finally dropped.
The story of Holmes was well woven into the story of the fair and took the spotlight at precisely the right time. I worried at the start the two stories would feel sort of shoved together but I did not find that to be the case. While the only thing Holmes and the Architects had in common was the fair, the fair was what the entire country, in the throws of a major recession, had to tie them together.
I could go on and on naming the interesting tidbits that caught my attention but I will end with this. Prior to reading this book, I was blissfully unaware of all the products that started or were spun from the fair. I even ate Shredded Wheat while reading this book many times before I learned this book was about how Shredded Wheat was introduced to my world.
I found the story to be well put together and suspenseful in all the right places. I will read another novel by this author in the future. I give this a 5 of 5 stars.
In my opinion, the book started out a bit difficult to follow. There were so many people introduced was starting to wonder if I should be keeping notes or flagging names as annotations on the Kindle but soon the author narrowed focus to a few key people and the story was much easier to follow. I again wish for some notes in the last fourth of the book when the author was concluding the lives of all of the characters. I honestly did not remember who some of the folks were!
Yet this book made me long to have lived in Chicago in the last decade of the 1800’s.
Oh, to have been a fly on the wall in the Rookery when the Architects held their planning meetings!
Or to have witnessed the first turn of the Farris Wheel! That horrible screeching would have been a noise for the ages. Though I knew the Farris Wheel was not going to be a huge failure, I did have that moment of passing thought “will it fall off and roll down the street taking out everything in its path?!”
I am able to imagine 700,000 people wandering the World Columbian Expedition as I have experienced many, many Minnesota State Fairs. It was comical to me to imagine the attendees dressed in their Sunday best when that is starkly different from what is warn to modern day fairs.
I immensely enjoyed how the author would describe someone or some event without giving away the most important details, giving the reading that “Oh! That’s how that came about” moment once the name was finally dropped.
The story of Holmes was well woven into the story of the fair and took the spotlight at precisely the right time. I worried at the start the two stories would feel sort of shoved together but I did not find that to be the case. While the only thing Holmes and the Architects had in common was the fair, the fair was what the entire country, in the throws of a major recession, had to tie them together.
I could go on and on naming the interesting tidbits that caught my attention but I will end with this. Prior to reading this book, I was blissfully unaware of all the products that started or were spun from the fair. I even ate Shredded Wheat while reading this book many times before I learned this book was about how Shredded Wheat was introduced to my world.
I found the story to be well put together and suspenseful in all the right places. I will read another novel by this author in the future. I give this a 5 of 5 stars.