The White City
Set at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, this extremely stylized account of a female profiler attempting to find a killer during the author’s version of the H. H. Holmes killing spree at the White City is much more a literary than a historical novel. The author has done extensive research into the isolated facts of the period, yet does not use these details to evoke a compelling sense of place and time. Anachronistic attitudes and bizarre use of language abound, and the unlikely concept of the protagonist’s profession in this time and place is never explored. Readers looking for a novel in the tradition of The Alienist will be disappointed.
