Book Review: The Devil In The White City

I just finished The Devil In The White City, and I'd have to say I was utterly disappointed with it. If you've never heard of this book before, essentially it's about a serial killer that struck Chicago in the late 1800's. Since this is regarded as one of the better true crime books out there, I expected to love it a lot. Honestly though, it's more so a history of the World Fair that took place in Chicago with the serial killer as a mere afterthought. Sure it talks about the killer, H.H Holmes as he most famously went by, some, but not nearly enough to call this a true crime book. I think the author and publisher wanted to sell this boring book and needed some kind of hook to grab people's attention.

I would have been fine with reading a book about the World Fair in Chicago, since Chicago seems like a cool city. Though since it was advertised as being all about the murder, magic, and madness at the fair, I expected it to be primarily focused on what the serial killer did. The book flips perspectives throughout, but the two main focuses are the main architect of the fair and Holmes. I kept waiting and waiting for it to jump into how the serial killer picked his victims and eventually got caught. This book went on and on for hundreds of pages before you get into the juicy part. My favorite pages where H.H. Holmes is finally caught by a detective take place within the last 50 pages of the book. That's not what I signed up for. Granted, it was probably hard to find many sources and first hand accounts of what happened since this all happened more than a hundred years ago. The author obviously put a lot of time and energy into researching the fair, but I don't think there was enough about Holmes to have him be a part of the story.

The parts about the fair were interesting, but were long and rambly in places. The author dropped a lot of names at once in the beginning, and I never really understood how they were intertwined with the life of Holmes. I think the two events, the planning/building of the fair and the murders by Holmes, were just two events that coincidentally happened at the same time. To me, the title made it out like Holmes actively went to the fair ground to stalk and catch his victims. That wasn't the case at all. Holmes was psychotic dude for sure, but he was kind of underwhelming if that makes sense. I recently finished the epitome of true crime books, Helter Skelter, which talks all about Charles Manson and his cult's killings. Finishing Helter Skelter before this book probably didn't help the matters, because I found Manson's story so intriguing. Hearing Manson's side made it that much darker, and I think The Devil In The White City really lacked that more personal feel. Obviously writing this book in that way would be impossible, since it happened way back when.

All in all, this was an underwhelming book. I was so psyched going into it, but it never have got to be what I had expected. I don't recommend it unless you're big into the history. If I had to give it a rating out of 5 stars, I'd give it a 2/5. Thanks for looking!