View showing the prison built 1832-1835 after the designs of Thomas Ustick Walter at Tenth and Reed streets. A horse-drawn wagon used to carry convicts, known as a "Black Maria," travels in front of the Gothic-style building. Two men watch the carriage from near the road and two others are visible close to one of the battlement towers. The prison, which operated under a system of solitary confinement, was demolished 1968.
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Book Review: “The True History of the White City Devil” by Adam Setzer

Most people know H.H. Holmes as the man who built a “murder castle” in Chicago. From there, the tales spiral into tantalizing tendrils of fact and myth, and it’s hard to parse out what is fact and what is fiction. Adam Selzer, in this excellently-crafted biography, helps unravel the H.H. Holmes myth.

Books lie on a table alongside a gun and a glass of whiskey.
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Book Review: “Hell’s Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness” by Harold Schechter

Serial killers have existed as long as humanity has. People are fascinated by lurid tales of dastardly deeds performed by depraved individuals. In some cases, the gorier, the better. History tends to focus on male serial killers, such as those named above. Female serial killers exist in history as well, like, for instance, Belle Gunness.

A family tree of the Guise family.
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Book Review: “Scourge of Henry VIII: The Life of Marie de Guise” by Melanie Clegg

Melanie Clegg writes a highly informative and readable, if not entirely academic, biography on Marie de Guise, Mary Queen of Scots’s’ mother. General readers will most likely find this to be a fascinating first foray into learning about Marie de Guise, especially if one is not familiar with her.