The Fall Of White City

Gilded Age Chicago Mysteries: Volume 1 - The Fall of White City Wealthy spinster Evangeline LeClair leads a paradoxical life. By day, she fends off marriage-minded suitors. By night, she teaches English to factory workers at a social settlement in the slums. Evangeline is quite satisfied with the status quo until murder disrupts her routine. One of her students, a penniless immigrant, has been stabbed to death in Chicago's most exclusive hotel. The girl's brother, a known anarchist, is accused of the crime. Evangeline wheedles her admirer, Freddie Simpson, into helping her track down the real killer. Their list of possible suspects is long: a captain of industry, a denizen of the slums, a shady doctor who mixes his own drugs, and a teenage prostitute from a sporting house in the Levee District. The gleaming surface of the World's Fair casts many shadows, and THE FALL OF WHITE CITY exposes the darkness at its core.

To solve baffling crimes in turn-of-the-century Chicago, you only need to know a single fact. Bygone sins in the White City cast the longest shadows. GILDED AGE CHICAGO MYSTERIES Gilded Age Chicago is the fastest growing metropolis in America, rivaling New York as the City of the Century. This melting pot of thieves and corrupt politicians, robber barons and immigrants, is rife with scandal and social injustice. An eccentric heiress and a star reporter find themselves repeatedly drawn into the hidden world of intrigue and murder that lurks within the shadows of the White City. Volume One - The Fall of White City Wealthy spinster Evangeline LeClair leads a paradoxical life. By day, she fends off marriage-minded suitors. By night, she teaches English to factory workers at a social settlement in the slums. Evangeline is quite satisfied with the status quo until murder disrupts her routine. One of her students, a penniless immigrant, has been stabbed to death in Chicago's most exclusive hotel. The girl's brother, a known anarchist, is accused of the crime. Evangeline wheedles her admirer, Freddie Simpson, into helping her track down the real killer. Their list of possible suspects is long: a captain of industry, a denizen of the slums, a shady doctor who mixes his own drugs, and a teenage prostitute from a sporting house in the Levee District. The gleaming surface of the World's Fair casts many shadows, and THE FALL OF WHITE CITY exposes the darkness at its core.

'An irresistible page-turner that reads like the most compelling, sleep defying fiction' TIME OUT One was an architect. The other a serial killer. This is the incredible story of these two men and their realization of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, and its amazing 'White City'; one of the wonders of the world. The architect was Daniel H. Burnham, the driving force behind the White City, the massive, visionary landscape of white buildings set in a wonderland of canals and gardens. The killer was H. H. Holmes, a handsome doctor with striking blue eyes. He used the attraction of the great fair - and his own devilish charms - to lure scores of young women to their deaths. While Burnham overcame politics, infighting, personality clashes and Chicago's infamous weather to transform the swamps of Jackson Park into the greatest show on Earth, Holmes built his own edifice just west of the fairground. He called it the World's Fair Hotel. In reality it was a torture palace, a gas chamber, a crematorium. These two disparate but driven men are brought to life in this mesmerizing, murderous tale of the legendary Fair that transformed America and set it on course for the twentieth century . . .

Winner of the 1999 Whitbread First Novel Award ‘Beautiful and brilliant’ Tony Parsons Estate agent Frankie Blue is known on his home turf – White City, Shepherd’s Bush – as ‘Frank the Fib’. He’s a liar – but one who always tries to tell the truth. Frankie has been friends with Diamond Tony, a hairdresser, Colin, a computer nerd, and Nodge, a cabbie, since schooldays. Now they are thirty and trying to live the same life as they did then – drinking, girls, banter, football. Then comes Frankie’s Great Betrayal – Veronica, and marriage, his ticket to a bigger, better grown-up world. From the moment he tells his mates, the whole patchwork of their friendships begins to collapse – revealing the sad, shocking but often hilarious truths that lie underneath. ‘Caustically funny and sometimes very affecting … with sardonic wit and a kind of tough tenderness, Lott portrays people growing up, growing apart or growing together’ Sunday Times ‘Mordantly funny … Observations are vivid, the dialogue crisp and, crucially, the characters are sympathetic’ Tatler

"You’ll want to race through The Silence of the White City, but it’s best to slow down and savor the full effect of the volatile, intoxicating universe Sáenz has created. This is the first novel of the White City trilogy to be translated into English—the second can’t come fast enough." —AirMail HOW DO YOU STOP A KILLER WHO'S ALWAYS TWO STEPS AHEAD? A madman is holding Vitoria hostage, killing its citizens in brutal ways and staging the bodies. The city's only hope is a brilliant detective struggling to battle his own demons. Inspector Unai López de Ayala, known as "Kraken," is charged with investigating a series of ritualistic murders. The killings are eerily similar to ones that terrorized the citizens of Vitoria twenty years earlier. But back then, police were sure they had discovered the killer, a prestigious archaeologist who is currently in jail. Now Kraken must race to determine whether the killer had an accomplice or if the wrong man has been incarcerated for two decades. This fast-paced, unrelenting thriller weaves in and out of the mythology and legends of the Basque country as it hurtles to its shocking conclusion.

Winner of the 2016 Miles Franklin Literary Award A powerful debut novel about two refugees starting over after losing everything Jovan and Suzana have fled war-torn Sarajevo. They have lost their children, their standing as public intellectuals, and their connection to each other. Now working as cleaners in a suburb of Melbourne, they struggle to rebuild their lives under the painful hardships of immigrant life. During a hot Melbourne summer Jovan's janitorial work at a hospital is disrupted by mysterious acts of vandalism. But as the attacks become more violent and racially charged, he feels increasingly targeted, and taunted to interpret their meaning. Under tremendous pressure the couple struggle to keep their marriage together, but fear that they may never find peace from the ravages of war . . . Black Rock White City is an essential story of displacement and immediate threat—the new reality of suburban life—and the deeply personal responses of two refugees seeking redemption.

A permanently frozen London is the setting for Roma Tearne’s 'thoughtful exploration' [The Guardian] of survival in a dystopian near-future. 'Tearne reminds us that, woven into London's cosmopolitanism, are memories of places to which individuals can never return' Brixton Review of Books A permanently frozen London is the setting for this harrowing yet lyrical tale of survival in a dystopian near-future. Through endless years of glacial winter, artist Hera has known loss. Her one comfort has been her relationship with Raphael. As the thaw begins, can she track down her elusive lover?