Larson writes an ambitious twin history: the making of Chicago's 1893 Columbian Exposition, and the twisted career of one of America's earliest-known serial killers, "H.H. Holmes" (Herman Mudgett). Like a good novel, the settings are vivdly realized and the principal characterizations are sharp. Larson rationed his sometimes-wry asides and observations well, keeping a steady focus on the action.

Of the intertwined parts, the saga of Daniel Burnham's Olympian effort to create an entire city -- the legendary "White City" that changed American civic design for generations afterwards -- is the most compelling. With less than two years to create a world-class exposition grounds out of a swampy wasteland, Burnham endured a sustained assault by Murphy's Law to realize the grandest world exposition ever staged. Bad weather, tangled governance, design delays, money problems, strikes, the deaths of key people and the Panic of 1893 all conspired to derail the Expo, while all of Chicago and the federal government breathed down Burnham's neck demanding an event that would eclipse the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1889 and salvage American pride. Larson's recounting of these events is sympathetic and vivid enough to get us rooting for Burnham and to feel his triumph when he does at last succeed. I want to go to that fair -- and so will you.

Strangely, Mudgett's tale is bloodless -- not in the sense that there's no gore (which there isn't) but in the sense that it seems remote and not as involving. Mudgett's MO is established early and he doesn't much deviate from it for the rest of his story. A charming, fluent and convincing liar and fraud, he seduces, fleeces, then kills one woman after another. He marries several of his unfortunate victims. He does this over and over again, and rarely faces any real threat or opposition until he's finally caught and exposed. The repetition becomes numbing, and the lack of real threat to Mudgett makes the story unexpectedly flat.

Devil in the White City is an easy read full of memorable characters set during a period that reflects our own times in many ways. If you come to this expecting a ripping serial-killer story, you'll be disappointed. If you're interested in the saga of the building of a near-miracle, this is the book to read.