Depraved

As Jack the Ripper terrorized London, another killer was tearing a swath of death through a booming suburb of late nineteen-century Chicago. A charming and dapper man, he admitted to twenty-seven murders, inhabiting a secret world of blood-lust that would forever define him as the most demoniac criminal of his day. Here is the macabre story of H.H. Holmes, architect of the infamous 'Castle of horror', whose labyrinth of trapdoors, stairways to nowhere, bedchambers fitted with peepholes and asphyxiating gas pipes, greased body chutes, and a cellar equipped with acid vats, a crematorium, and dissecting table, became an unspeakable domain of torture and murder. With stark, ghastly detail, 'Depraved' takes you into the mind of this evil genius - who alternately posed as doctor, druggist, and inventor to snare his prey - and reveals a mesmerizing tale of true detection before the age of technological wizardry.