A passion for Holmes lore will lead to appreciation for the depth of background and lesser criminal exploits described in...
An attempt to unmask an infamous mass murderer.
In this occasionally thrilling new biography of H.H. Holmes (1861-1896), who received renewed attention in 2003 when Erik Larson published The Devil in the White City, Mysterious Chicago tour guide and author Selzer (Just Kill Me, 2016, etc.) recharacterizes Holmes as a small-time con man who was likely guilty of a series of murders in Chicago. In his introduction, the author makes his argument clear. Holmes, he writes, is said to have killed more than 200 people in his “murder castle,” but he was only actually accused of killing one person at that location. Unfortunately, the author doesn’t make clear from the beginning that he believes Holmes killed many more people, with the other crimes occurring elsewhere. Immediately, Selzer launches into a history of Holmes the con man, and it is only a third of the way into the book that he begins to explore the other murders he suspects Holmes is guilty of committing. Selzer’s attempt to understand Holmes by delving deep into his early history of insurance and mortgage fraud and bigamy is initially intriguing on a psychoanalytical level, but it keeps the later portions of the story, which focus on the murders, from feeling like a natural part of the narrative. The author’s research is unquestionably impressive, and he effectively exposes how the Holmes legend became what it is today based mostly on conjecture and gossip. But for all the new information Selzer brings to light, large chunks of the story are plodding and confusing. Few readers will argue with the author’s assertion that it is the unfounded nature of the legends surrounding him for which Holmes is an intriguing figure, but a combination of disjointed storytelling and unnecessary minutiae slows the pace.
A passion for Holmes lore will lead to appreciation for the depth of background and lesser criminal exploits described in great detail, but the audience will remain limited.Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5107-1343-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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