Book review: The Devil in the White City

Just wrapped up Erik Larson's "The Devil in the White City," a look back at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago and the heinous crimes of America's first known serial killer, H.H. Holmes.

My wife read it first and highly recommended it, so that might have established unrealistic expectations, but I have to say I was a bit disappointed in the pace of the book. First of all, it's hard to categorize it, because it's neither fish nor fowl. It's a novelization of the actual events surrounding the World's Fair, including tremendous detail (even excruciating detail) on the process the fatcats of Chicago went through to gain the rights to host the fair and the construction of the buildings and preparation of the grounds.

I say excruciating, because unless you're an architecture wonk, the first 200 or so pages are going to be a bit of a bore. I love history and true crime stories, so I thought this would be a great fit for me, but instead much of it read like the minutes from a series of committee meetings. Larson tried like hell to get me interested in the lives of the various architects and barons of the Chicago business community at the turn of the century, especially Daniel Burnham, the man he describes as most responsible for the fair's success.

But the problem is, this was really two books. The story of the fair takes up about 75% of the text, while the rest centers on the fascinatingly creepy Dr. Holmes. Larson generally alternates chapters, with one focusing on Burnham and the fair and the next on Holmes, with the pacing of the story leading me to expect some kind of great intersection of the two plots.

Alas, there's precious little payoff there. I was hoping there would be a big chase scene through the fair, or an American version of Sherlock Holmes tracking the devious killer through the "White City," but it just didn't happen that way. The murders took place at the same time as the fair, and many of the victims were lured to Chicago by the fair, but they really didn't have anything to do with the fair.

In the end, I realized that I learned a lot about what made the 1893 Chicago World's Fair such a historically significant event, but I wanted to know even more about the killer and his evil deeds. I guess I'll have to wait for the movie, which is supposed to be coming out next year. If it focuses as much on the architects as Larson did, it will make "Ishtar" look like "The Matrix."