The Beast of Chicago (Treasury of Victorian Murder) [Illustrated] [Paperback]

This is the latest in Rick Geary's series A Treasury of Victorian Murder. Many people have become fascinated with H. H. Holmes thanks to the book The Devil And The White City. But unlike that book, this is not a dramatization. Instead it is a simple chronological account of the man based on what little evidence actually exists.

Not a whole lot is know about Dr. Holmes, much is supposition and here say. Geary does an excellent job of recounting the facts as well as highlighting many inconsistencies in the legend (i.e. at one point Holmes admitted to the murder of 27 people but some of them were still alive).

Although Geary's series is written in a comic book format, this is not really a comic book. The reader is drawn in quickly and then the story is presented in a very clear and straightforward manner.

Whether this is your first account of Holmes or your tenth, I am sure you will find the story fascinating.

Rick Geary's Beast Of Chicago is a story of a Victorian murder scenario and one H. H. Holmes is presented entirely in black and white graphic novel format, providing readers with a blend of insight, humor, and survey of the world's first serial killer who operated in the late 19th century around the Chicago World's Fair. Holmes murdered up to 200 people, and his reputation comes to life in this exciting graphic novel story.

Sometime around 1998 I discovered a paragraph or two about the killer Herman Mudgett on some amateur websites, the kind of seat-of-the-pants efforts that consigned them to early webdeaths. They offered measly details about Mudgetts appearance and his castle, but the rousing story arc was there; A fiendish charlatan preying on travelers trekking to Chicago to see the 1893 Worlds Fair, followed by a chase and his "castle" in flames. The details were sparse but they had the intended effect; they were spine-tingling. A lack of photos kept the imagery just out of reach. It was tantalizing to wonder what the castle looked like. Was it something to compete with Chicago's contemporaneous Potter Palmer castle? How had Mudgett's castle escaped mention in all the Chicago architecture histories I'd read? How had Mudgett fallen from the collective memory of a city and a nation, while Lizzie Borden's parents made their bloody exit and she remains notorious to this day? It was like the kids in A Nightmare on Elm Street, growing up oblivious about Freddy Krueger, what he'd done, and what their parents had in turn done to him.

The re-emergence of the Mudgett narrative in the last 5 years has been disappointing. None of these efforts have caught my imagination like those junky retellings where I first learned about him. I'd long ago accepted that Mudgetts "castle" was outwardly just an unremarkable 3-story corner store. The recent best seller, Devil in the White City (about the same topic), had narrative problems that continue here. Relievedly absent is that books excruciating A/B storyline structure, but just as D.I.T.W.C. foundered and got lost in insurance schemes, location shifts, and a rollcall of lesser figures, so does this.

It's the first time the story is told with imagery. One would think that the real opportunity here was the chance to envision those things that we haven't seen till now, and what is really unique about the case. The material should benefit from diagrams and graphics. But it just didn't come to life for me. In other titles in the series Geary's fastidious research and factuality are what make them compelling, here the facts concern the least interesting aspects of the crime: ancillary pawns that Mudgett encountered, and documentation of what he confessed after the fact. There's still way too little about the house. If you wrote about Sarah Winchester, would you start with her very factual checkbook entries? The story requires streamlining. As I read, I became impatient; how much longer would these uninteresting cross-country switcharoos continue? When would the castle and bodies show up? I wished Geary had consigned more of the late victims and shadowy flunkies to anonymity. For me the story IS Mudgett's house, and the way it's design assisted in the dispatch of victims. He saves those details for quite late in the story and then presents them in unpeopled tableaux. There is no horror per se. Worst of all, nearly all the victims simply disappear between panels in the drawings. The tease just goes on too long. Insurance claims, swindles, and train rides aren't especially frightening when visualized.

Unhelpful also is the delineation of "secret" rooms which are drawn exactly like the non-secret rooms you use all day. (How secret can they be..? the door's right there.) Likewise for callouts naming some of the castle's secrets which are not self-explanatory and never make it into the narrative. (The Maze, Five Door Room, Sealed Room, The Hanging Blind Room & Mysterious Closed Room...??!!)

Mudgett is just one of several deviate serial killers associated with Chicago (along with John Wayne Gacy, Larry Eyler, Leopold & Loeb and Richard Speck. And Jeffrey Dahmer snared some of his victims at Carols Speakeasy on Halsted, another Chicago location erased from the collective memory) Makes you wonder if there's something in the water.

This is my 4th title in the series. It is my 4th favorite.