BOOKS: About Erik Larson

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Erik Larson’s ‘The Devil in the White City’ Available on his Official Home Page 

By Jorge Jefferds September 12, 2014

In one of my many trips to other countries, whether for vacation of work, I found in a connecting flight this amazing novel by Erik Larson.

‘The Devil in the White City’, a national bestseller, brings to the reader intriguing features of Chicago.  The city struggled to become one of the modern metropolises of the late nineteenth century.

‘The Devil in the White City’, whose first edition Vintage Books published in 2004, is the vivid history about the glittering Chicago’s World Fair and the juxtaposition of the two main authors of this great event.  

Architect Daniel H. Burnham obtained the power and the mission to create master plans for the development of important urban areas. 

Murderer H.H. Holmes possessed the darkest forces to bring terror, being one of the most wanted serial killers.

Although, they never met, their fates became linked by a single and magical architectural project—an ambition to secure America’s place in the world.

Amidst this entire pompous planning, Holmes lured his victims to a silent death, uncovered many years later.

The book is an absorbing piece of history. Readers forget that Larson’s work is nonfiction and imagine they are involved in a simple creepy mystery novel. 

Winner of the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime, this true literature easily evokes Truman Capote’s ‘In Cold Blood’, except for one thing: Larson is a historian with a novelist’s soul.

In addition to ‘The Devil in the White City”, he is author of other acclaimed international bestseller: ‘Isaac’s Storm’, ‘Thunderstruck’ and ‘In the Garden of Beast’. He has written for several publishing companies as a contributing writer.

Tell me what you think about reading a true story of killings in the next Halloween.