Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, The

Reviews
I was really excited for this book because I was very intrigued about the premise. Overall, I will say that the writing style is good. Every few chapters it would jump between the story/premise of the construction and trials of the World's Fair in Chicago, IL and then it would jump to the story/premise of the psychopath serial killer, Herman Webster Mudgett (aka H.H. Homes). I feel that this book really dragged on with the premise of the construction. Even though I enjoyed the story and learning more about the trials and the successes of what went into the planning, constructing and maintaining the 1893 World's Fair in the United States, I really would have appreciated it from the author to give us more into the life and investigation of the serial killer. I feel that the storyline of H.H. Homes was really lacking in more detail and that was really what originally pulled in my attention to this book. I will say this, that the end of the story really did a good job with wrapping up the book and giving me closure for the story line of H.H. Homes. Heads up though, this book really starts out slow. Be prepared to push through it for at least the first 1/4 of it. It does pick up about half way through the book. All in all, I would recommend this book because the Author did a great job with his research and his writing style was not confusing. This is an entertaining piece of published work that is based on true United States of American History.
AP SUGGESTED
Ms. Nystel has read this book!
Excellent writing, great research, and great integration of research into good writing. I would - and will - read it again!
There were many times when I lost the different stories in the book, but at the same time I was completely transfixed by all the stories. I was interested to see how they each ended individually and as a whole.
As to the epilogue at the end, usually I don't tend to like these - I think they are unnecessary and out of the way. But in the case I actually enjoyed it and didn't find it unnecessary at all.
I found the book slow, extremely detailed, and doesn't provided much to get me into or keep into the book. I'm might have kept plodding at this since I'm thinking it will pick up. After a week though, I'm rather over it.
First book of the year was a failure. Hopefully this isn't a trend.