The White City: A Novel of Murder at the Chicago World's Fair

by Alec Michod

Book Overview

It is the year of our lord, 1893. The crackle of electricity's first sparks, the mechanical whine of Ferris's wheel, the tinkling of crystal from the majestic city atop the hill--the sounds of a new era pervade the air as the century's last World's Fair commences in Chicago.

But darkness lurks beneath the metropolis so austere it has been dubbed the White City. Strikes loom on the horizon, racism runs rampant, and a murderer unlike any America...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312313985
• ISBN13: 9780312313982
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

A really great book!

I felt this book was thrilling and left me wanting more! Michod sets a wonderful and detailed setting as the backdrop. I hope that his next book will come out soon, I'm really looking forward to it.

Good fun read

I enjoyed the read...And am not quite sure how any one could write such a rant against an interesting story.

A Dark & Twisted Thriller

If you liked "The Alienist" you'll love "White City." Author Alec Michod delivers a dark and twisted tale that I found myself unable to escape from. The sensory details that Michod paints with such immediacy lingered in my thoughts even after I put the book down. Other reviewers decry the lack of historical accuracy, but a gripping tale such as this is far harder to come by than a historically correct one. So check your note pad at the door and be prepared to enter the seedy underbelly of the beast with this riviting mystery that leaves you hungry for more.

Original and gripping

Alec Michod?s The White City is terrific book. More than that, it?s a rare and unique book?a tour de force of language, imagery, and plot?from an author who writes like no one else writing today. In a series of concentrated, high-relief scenes, Michod orchestrates a gripping thriller, presenting by turns the adventures of a lost boy; the deterioration of grieving parents; the machinations of a big city police department and the growing panic of the city itself. Michod?s detective, Dr. Elizabeth Handley, is a Victorian iconoclast whose investigation exerts a gradually widening pull on the reader?s attention; the author?s technique in bringing her center stage is sneaky and deft, and several of the later scenes are breathtakingly suspenseful. But the best reason to read this book is for the writing, which is gorgeous and original throughout.

Mysteriously wonderful

Have not found a book so detailed yet not embelished in a long while. Could not believe that this was from the hands of an amateur writer. Can see the places and events as I had been reading because of the depth and time spent uncovering the truths of what happened during the period. Cannot wait for more.