Recommended by
- James Dyson: "What better a time to set a mystery thriller than during the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair — the birthplace for so much American ingenuity." source ↗
Summary
Erik Larson's 2003 narrative of the 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition, told through the parallel stories of Daniel Burnham, the architect who built the fair, and H. H. Holmes, the serial killer who used the fair's crowds as cover. The fair introduced the Ferris wheel, alternating current, the first moving walkway, and crackerjack — a concentrated burst of American innovation conjured from nothing in two years.