The Fall of White City

Revised 2020 Edition (Gilded Age Chicago Mysteries, Book 1)

By: N.S. Wikarski

Narrated by: Lucinda Gainey

Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's summary

• Revised 2020 edition. Nominated for Reader's Choice Awards as Best First Novel and Best Historical Mystery (LIM, Feb 2003)
• For fans of cozy mysteries, amateur sleuths, and gilded age chicago history

Gilded Age Chicago Mystery Series

Chicago in the 1890s is the fastest growing metropolis in America. It rivals New York as the City of the Century and the epitome of the Gilded Age. This melting pot of thieves and corrupt politicians, and robber barons and immigrants, is rife with scandal and social injustice. An eccentric heiress and a cub 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.

©2020 N. S. Wikarski (P)2021 N. S. Wikarski

Vintage Chicago charm and grit

A thoroughly fun period mystery, with lively, smart characters. Fun, understated, full of good twists and turns!

Chicago 1893: Hull House " White City" Murder

Having been a mystery buff for over fifty years but a historical fiction buff for less time, I never read the Gilded Age Chicago Mysteries. I'm delighted that this was reissued and that I chose to listen to it recently. Evangeline (Engie), a wealthy single woman of marriageable age, teaches at Hull House and has become immersed in Jane Addams' and Helen Gates Starr's mission, when a very promising student is found dead in an upscale hotel. Elsa, a smart, curious and beautiful German immigrant is dead and her twin, Franz arrested for her murder. Engie ropes in her childhood friend Freddie, an aspiring journalist stuck in a law career he hates to investigate. She is fairly sure the police are more focused on Franz's political leanings, which are anarchistic, than what really happened. This is a well plotted, though given away too early, mystery about class, women's roles, Hull House, the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, full of temporary buildings that cost a fortune to build and human beings. Children still earn a living in factories instead of going to school. The murder of a poor young woman is solved quickly, her death unimportant. Engie moves between all of these worlds, enjoying her wealth and privilege but also committed to raising others up. This is a fun, engaging novel with great characters. As to the narrator of this audible book, she was GREAT, five stars EXCEPT for Freddy's voice. He's a major character and the voice she chose for him grated. So one star lost but overall not a deal breaker.

Entertaining

I enjoyed the story and the performance was very good. I look forward to the next book in the series. Well done.