Tammy H. (bluesooner) reviewed on 4/1/2009

Helpful Score: 3

Who knew that the country's first serial murderer was at Chicago's World's Fair? Not me, and that's just one of the gazillion little facts you're gonna come away with. I was expecting a book about the world's fair overcome by a serial-killer. Not so. The author's focus is more on the journey the planners and architects undertook to make this event happen against enormous odds at the turn of the nineteenth century. The author certainly did his research on how the contracts were awarded for where the world's fair would take place, designing the fair, the months and months and years that went by from one deadline to another. You really feel like you know Chicago by the time you finish. Although the details about the serial murderer were interspersed throughout the book and you felt that drama building up as the fair was coming to life, it all seemed anticlimactic. Something about this book just didn't work for me. It gets so bogged down in all the minutia of the planners and the architects relationships that drags on for years. But if the World's Fair is your thing then this is the book for you. I can't imagine a question about the history of Chicago or the planning of the fair that's not answered. But if you want a really good book about serial killers, read The Dante Club.

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