A review by jeffhall
The Beast of Chicago: The Murderous Career of H. H. Holmes by Rick Geary

4.0

The Beast of Chicago is a chilling and thoroughly readable account of the dark exploits of a truly unbelievable monster, and yet the measure of the story certainly rings true in the hands of an artist as talented as Rick Geary. The author has proven his ability to pull off this sort of complex narrative before, most obviously in previous volumes of the Treasury of Victorian Murder series. But the familiar elements are deployed with unusual panache in The Beast of Chicago, with both the narrative and the penwork displaying a high level of confidence and formal beauty. The only real downside of this book is the unrelieved grimness of the character and his deeds - it's all so dark as to be almost unbelievable, and yet the man really lived. A troubling paradox delivered (in this volume) by a master artist.