This book left me frustrated. The cover promises: murder, magic and mayhem and it did NOT deliver. I'm a little magics magpie and when magics are promised then I WANT THE MAGIC. This book didn't have it...like at all...wtf?The other thing I couldn't support with this book is that there's really two independent stories going on. The first story thread is about the Chicago World's Fair and all of the struggles in making the fair a success. The second storyline is all about a mass murderer who set up shop in Chicago during the fair. The only time the stories really intersect is when the murdering maniac brings some unsuspecting lady friend to the fair and then a few days later kills her.
Anyhow, this book would have been great as two books. The story of the murderer is interesting and so is the story about building the fair. Together it's a whole lotta too much going on. Plus, Larson commits a cardinal sin of crime novels, he never really gets into the psychology of the killer. Why does he do it? Obviously he's bat shit crazy, but the best crime stories give a psychological profile of the killer and you won't find one in this story.
Plus, there's the whole absence of magic thing. It would be like if the hit television show Charmed decided to bill themselves as a story about three witches, but the witches didn't have any powers and all the show focused on was their real life careers. Boring!
So, 2/5 or 4/10 stars.
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