MURDER BY GASLIGHT
MURDER, MAYHEM & MYTHOLOGY AND THE TRUE STORY OF H.H. HOLMES
America during the Gaslight Era was a time and place of wealth and wonder, but beneath its gilded surface was a world of vice, crime, sin, and corruption. It was an age of robber barons, con artists, celebrity killers, and the greatest World's Fair in our nation's history.
And beneath those bright lights lurked H.H. Holmes. A sinister doctor with a talent for deception, Holmes slithered his way into American lore through a labyrinth of fraud, manipulation, and murder. Killing for profit and convenience, he claimed an unknown number of victims inside his infamous "Murder Castle" in Chicago, a monstrous edifice filled with trapdoors, twisting corridors, secret passages, hidden chambers, torture rooms, and a basement where the horrors of his crimes were quietly erased.
When his crimes caught up with him and he was forced to flee, Holmes left a trail of corpses and a legion of bewildered lawmen in his wake. The relentless pursuit that followed came to a grim finale after his capture with a courtroom spectacle that was hailed as the "Trial of the Century."
In this chilling book, author Troy Taylor digs beneath the legends and sensational headlines to reveal the true story of H.H. Holmes. Stripping away the myths, inventions, and exaggerations, he presents a stark, razor-edged account of Holmes' murders, his swindles, his false confessions, and the dark truths that he fought so desperately to bury.