The Devil in the White City

A guilty pleasure is this true story of nineteenth-century serial killer Henry Holmes, as it relates (with some stretch of credulity) to the Colombian Exposition of 1893, erected on Chicago's Southside, not far from Holmes's lair. The author, who writes more like a carnival pitchman than an investigative reporter, fills his account with fascinating detail, and even when the detail isn't fascinating, he tries to make it so with florid description. Scott Brick attacks this material with relish, narrating with a sardonic edge and masterful attention to phrasing. Okay, he should have looked up the pronunciation of "phaeton," "calumet," and a few other terms, but if we pretend not to notice, we'll have a lot of perverse fun. Y.R. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine