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CITY FOR RANSOM
by Robert W. Walker
Avon, January 2006
336 pages
$6.99
ISBN: 0060739959


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Chicago 1893. The eyes of the world have turned to the architectural wonder which is the Chicago World's Fair at White City, running from Jackson Park to Washington Park, with a 'midway', a strip of land connecting the two parks and used as the first amusement park.

However, all is not well in Chicago. Inspector Alastair Ransom, an alcoholic detective still suffering from injuries sustained during the Haymarket Riots several years before, is called to the site of a murder. A body has been found. The victim has been garroted and then his body set on fire. This is the third victim thus discovered since the fair opened on May 1.

Police Chief Nathan Kohler, an antagonist of Inspector Ransom, sends Dr Tewes, a phrenologist, to read the skull of the victim, in hopes of discovering some clues to the identity of his killer. Ransom is, of course, suspicious of this pseudo science and at first resists Dr Tewes' pleas to be allowed to study the skull. Finally, Ransom twists the skull off the body and thrusts it at Tewes, thereby soiling his white suit.

Fingerprints are taken. An Argentine police officer had successfully used fingerprints to prove a woman guilty only the previous year, so this is a science in its infancy. The policemen also muse that if one day they could tell the difference between animal and human blood, that would be a tool that would come in handy.

Rumors abound of the 'Chicago Ripper' and the 'Phantom of the Fair', but the powers that be need the revenues they hope the fair will bring to Chicago, so these rumors are hushed up. However, the Chicago PD is underfunded. Their coroner's wagon is a recycled Oscar Mayer wagon!

The book tries to do too much by dealing with too many topics, police accountability, forensics, women's suffrage and women's rights, among others. It is by no means a book like THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY which was a work of non-fiction detailing the building of the fair and the search for the serial killer known as HH Holmes. The fair is only a peripheral items in the book.

However, all that said, the almost out of control Inspector Ransom is a fascinating character and I would like to read more about him . . .and more about Chicago at the turn of the last century.

Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, February 2006

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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