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Alastair Ransom #2
Shadows in the White City
The nation and the world gaze in awe at Chicago's magnificent "White City" in this summer of 1893. But Inspector Alastair Ransom sees the rot beneath the splendor of the great Exposition—and he is consumed with an over-powering need for vengeance. "The Phantom of the Fair," a blood-thirsty fiend who nearly added Ransom to his ever-growing list of slaughtered victims, is still lurking somewhere in the shadows of Ferris's gargantuan Wheel. And to end the maniac's reign, Ransom refuses to play by the rules established by the police brass and the corrupt politicians—appointing himself judge, jury . . . and executioner. But white-hot hatred and zealous fury can blind a determined manhunter to a more terrible truth. And dangerous missteps may lead to even greater bloodshed . . .
352 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published March 27, 2007
2 people are currently reading
55 people want to read
About the author
Robert W. Walker
184 books77 followersAka Geoffrey Caine, Glenn Hale, Evan Kingsbury, Stephen Robertson
Master of suspense and bone-chilling terror, Robert W. Walker, BS and MS in English Education, Northwestern University, has penned 44 novels and has taught language and writing for over 25 years. Showing no signs of slowing down, he is currently juggling not one but three new series ideas, and has completed a film script and a TV treatment. Having grown up in Chicago and having been born in the shadow of the Shiloh battlefield, near Corinth, Mississippi, Walker has two writing traditions to uphold--the Windy City one and the Southern one--all of which makes him uniquely suited to write City for Ransom and its sequels, Shadows in White City and City of the Absent. His Dead On will be published in July 2009. Walker is currently working on a new romantic-suspense-historical-mainstream novel, titled Children of Salem. In 2003 and 2004 Walker saw an unprecedented seven novels released on the "unsuspecting public," as he puts it. Final Edge, Grave Instinct, and Absolute Instinct were published in 2004. City of the Absent debuted in 2008 from Avon. Walker lives in Charleston, West Virginia.
Master of suspense and bone-chilling terror, Robert W. Walker, BS and MS in English Education, Northwestern University, has penned 44 novels and has taught language and writing for over 25 years. Showing no signs of slowing down, he is currently juggling not one but three new series ideas, and has completed a film script and a TV treatment. Having grown up in Chicago and having been born in the shadow of the Shiloh battlefield, near Corinth, Mississippi, Walker has two writing traditions to uphold--the Windy City one and the Southern one--all of which makes him uniquely suited to write City for Ransom and its sequels, Shadows in White City and City of the Absent. His Dead On will be published in July 2009. Walker is currently working on a new romantic-suspense-historical-mainstream novel, titled Children of Salem. In 2003 and 2004 Walker saw an unprecedented seven novels released on the "unsuspecting public," as he puts it. Final Edge, Grave Instinct, and Absolute Instinct were published in 2004. City of the Absent debuted in 2008 from Avon. Walker lives in Charleston, West Virginia.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 11, 2020
Thought I would never finish this book usually read one a week this one took months. It just never held my interest and the story moves too slow for my taste. I kept waiting for it to improve but it didn’t.
March 23, 2008
Chicago is hosting the World’s Fair in the year 1893 but there is trouble afoot. A killer dubbed the Phantom of the Fair is on the loose, garroting his victims to near-decapitation and burning their bodies. Inspector Alastair Ransom has his sights set on a young man named Waldo Denton but Denton is exonerated by Ransom’s archenemy, Police Chief Nathan Kohler. When Denton disappears, with Ransom’s help, evidence proves he was the Phantom. But another killer quickly steps in to fill the Phantom’s shoes, this one more vicious and brutal than the Phantom.
Named the Leather Apron because the killer literally butchers victims, Ransom’s investigation leads him to the underbelly of Chicago, desperate to put an end to this manic murderer who preys on the homeless. What Ransom learns shocks even this skilled detective. With the help of Dr. Jane Francis, aka Dr. James Phineas Tewes, and a group of homeless children, along with primitive forensics, Ransom trails the Leather Apron to tunnels beneath the World’s Fair, where a bloody battle has already begun.
Robert W. Walker delivers an outstanding historical mystery, with compelling characters and a shocking resolution. Dialogue and narrative magically transcend the reader to the true realism of Chicago of the late 1800s, skillfully highlighting unfolding historical events and the roles women played in medicine and society as well as the plight of the homeless. This twisting mystery provides plenty of gut-wrenching suspense embedded in a galvanizing plot that refuses to allow the reader to put the book aside. Inspector Alastair Ransom is a unique character, a man of great depth and principles who lives by his own rules, and who can easily carry this invigorating series forward.
Named the Leather Apron because the killer literally butchers victims, Ransom’s investigation leads him to the underbelly of Chicago, desperate to put an end to this manic murderer who preys on the homeless. What Ransom learns shocks even this skilled detective. With the help of Dr. Jane Francis, aka Dr. James Phineas Tewes, and a group of homeless children, along with primitive forensics, Ransom trails the Leather Apron to tunnels beneath the World’s Fair, where a bloody battle has already begun.
Robert W. Walker delivers an outstanding historical mystery, with compelling characters and a shocking resolution. Dialogue and narrative magically transcend the reader to the true realism of Chicago of the late 1800s, skillfully highlighting unfolding historical events and the roles women played in medicine and society as well as the plight of the homeless. This twisting mystery provides plenty of gut-wrenching suspense embedded in a galvanizing plot that refuses to allow the reader to put the book aside. Inspector Alastair Ransom is a unique character, a man of great depth and principles who lives by his own rules, and who can easily carry this invigorating series forward.
March 12, 2008
Shadows In the White City
Robert W. Walker
Avon-Harper Collins, 352 pgs.
ISBN-10: 0060739967
Shadows in the White City is the second book in the Inspector Alastair Ransom series.
Alastair Ransom, Walker's title hero, has been favorably likened to Holmes, Nero Wolfe, Nick Charles, and Caleb Carr's the Alienist, and even Wes Craven's creations
I couldn't wait for this book to be published. I had to find out what happened next so I was able to read the book prior to publication. Shadows in the White City is every bit as exciting and suspenseful as City For Ransom. The characters just come alive and you feel you are walking the streets of Chicago in Alastair's long ago time.
Dr. Jane Francis Tewes and her daughter are characters that I love and Shadows gives the reader the opportunity to learn more about the good doctor and her daughter and some of the struggles of women during that era and the lengths that they had to go to in order to practice their expertise in a world not ready to accept women as anything but someone who stays at home and cares for the house.
My biggest problem when reading Walker’s Shadows In the White City was wishing I could pick up book number three in the series as soon as I read the last page of Shadows. I can’t wait for City of the Absent to be published. I’m anxious to read number three and wondering if the readers will be offered a number four in the series.
Robert W. Walker
Avon-Harper Collins, 352 pgs.
ISBN-10: 0060739967
Shadows in the White City is the second book in the Inspector Alastair Ransom series.
Alastair Ransom, Walker's title hero, has been favorably likened to Holmes, Nero Wolfe, Nick Charles, and Caleb Carr's the Alienist, and even Wes Craven's creations
I couldn't wait for this book to be published. I had to find out what happened next so I was able to read the book prior to publication. Shadows in the White City is every bit as exciting and suspenseful as City For Ransom. The characters just come alive and you feel you are walking the streets of Chicago in Alastair's long ago time.
Dr. Jane Francis Tewes and her daughter are characters that I love and Shadows gives the reader the opportunity to learn more about the good doctor and her daughter and some of the struggles of women during that era and the lengths that they had to go to in order to practice their expertise in a world not ready to accept women as anything but someone who stays at home and cares for the house.
My biggest problem when reading Walker’s Shadows In the White City was wishing I could pick up book number three in the series as soon as I read the last page of Shadows. I can’t wait for City of the Absent to be published. I’m anxious to read number three and wondering if the readers will be offered a number four in the series.
October 25, 2010
For some reason I like this time period~world's fair in Chicago. I think if I had read previous books with these characters I probably would have liked this book even more. Since this was the first Inspector Alastair Ransom mystery I've read it was a little hard to care about the main characters.
January 26, 2016
Shadows is interesting for its backfgound of Chicago at the time of its great Fair. The hero is flawed: a drug-addicted cop who dispenses justice by murdering the murderer. Interesting too because of its portrayal of a central female character, a woman who masquarades as man in order to practice medicine , which, as a female, she would not have been able to do in the 1880-1890"s.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews