I found the dual plot lines of this book fascinating--doubly fascinating because they were based on actual occurrences. The epic efforts of architect Daniel Burnham to conceptualize, design, and finally engineer the fantastic 1893 Chicago World's Fair was inspiring and breathtaking. Paired with the second narrative describing the grisly deeds of H.H. Holmes, the serial killer whose "murder castle" (located only about a mile away from the Expositions Midway) contained secret rooms, torture chambers, and a hidden crematorium, this tale constructs a sort of unholy yin and yanglike description of how the greatest good and most vile evil can--and do--exist side by side in America. This is a compelling and fascinating read.
The Chicago World Fair was the greatest fair in American history. This is the story of the men and women whose lives it irrevocably changed and of two men in particular- an architect and a serial killer. The architect is Daniel Burnham, a man of great integrity and depth. It was his vision of the fair that attracted the best minds and talents of the day. The killer is Henry H. Holmes. Intelligent as well as handsome and charming, Holmes opened a boarding house which he advertised as 'The World's Fair Hotel' Here in the neighbourhood where he was once…
Placing the reader squarely into the mind and sensibility (if you can call it that) of a sociopathic killer, Ms. Highsmith created an entirely new type of thriller; in this case, the reader is not so much concerned with whodunit as to why hedunit. Following Mr. Ripley across Europe and witnessing his extended string of crimes and the extensive web of lies he weaves--and his appreciation for the finer things in life, I was both enthralled and repulsed by his exploits. In a weird way, I admired him and found myself rooting for him. To create the interior life of such a repugnant human being, and to do it so well, is a great achievement in fiction. Not since Humbert Humbert have I read about such a likable criminal.
It's here, in the first volume of Patricia Highsmith's five-book Ripley series, that we are introduced to the suave Tom Ripley, a young striver seeking to leave behind his past as an orphan bullied for being a "sissy." Newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan, Ripley meets a wealthy industrialist who hires him to bring his playboy son, Dickie Greenleaf, back from gallivanting in Italy. Soon Ripley's fascination with Dickie's debonair lifestyle turns obsessive as he finds himself enraged by Dickie's ambivalent affections for Marge, a charming American dilettante, and Ripley begins a deadly game. "Sinister and strangely alluring"…
This sweeping epic of the relationship between ourselves and the natural world is not only amazing, it is breathtaking in its breadth and ambition. Weaving together the story threads of nine character whose lives have been deeply affected by trees and forests, the non-linear narratives join the nine from their initial captivations with nature to their political empowerment as they eventually join forces as activists. The writing is in turns beautiful, suspensful, and fascinating, as when two of the characters live on a tree stand an ancient redwood to protect it from loggers. Those passages are nothing less than revelatory. A must read for anyone who has enjoyed a walk in the woods and who would like to do so agin.
The Overstory, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of-and paean to-the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers's twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours-vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see…
Nelson West, a former Chicago homicide detective, is hired by wealthy heir Lionel Bing to discreetly help “fix” scandals and legal problems for his father’s wealthy friends. Bing, a brilliant but troubled investigator, suffers from PTSD symptoms as a result of being kidnapped and witnessing the murder of his mother as a child. West, himself haunted by a murder case he was unable to solve, joins forces with Lionel to investigate the case of a five-million-dollar loan fraud from a local bank. The case takes them and forensic specialist Mia Wentworth from elite financial boardrooms to the jungles of Mexico where they uncover an unlikely link between a gold mine, the Catholic Church, and the ruthless chief of a drug cartel.
