My Favorite Horror Story edited by Mike Baker and Martin H. Greenburg

My Favorite Horror Story
Edited by Mike Baker and Martin H. Greenberg

The concept of this anthology is simple. The editors asked several prominent horror and science fiction writers to submit their favorite horror stories. The sum is a collection of stories that inspired today’s best writers to write.

I enjoy short horror fiction. Stephen King, in describing the satisfaction of reading a good short story, made an apt comparison between the short story and a novel. He likened a novel to a long love affair while comparing the short story to a quick kiss from a stranger. While I’ve ever experienced the latter, I’ve got to believe the experience would be enjoyable.

Sweets to the Sweet
By Robert Bloch
Submitted by Stephen King

A nanny has quit the employ of a wealthy aristocrat because she can no longer care for the man’s daughter whom she describes as evil – so evil even her own father hates her. When the man’s brother goes to his house to see the girl and investigate, he finds the girl playing with her toys, which are really just “candy”.

Movie fans know of Bloch’s most prolific work, Psycho, a novella that Alfred Hitchcock made into one of the greatest horror movies of all time. Connoisseurs of horror fiction know Bloch as one of the masters and great contributors to contemporary genre fiction. Like most Bloch work, the prose is short and the story well paced.

The Father Thing
By Phillip K. Dick
Submitted by Ed Gorman

Aliens have eaten Charles Watsons’ father. He must flee from the awful thing that has taken its place and take revenge on its evil master.

This is the only Dick story I’ve ever read and, while I enjoyed it, I enjoyed the movie, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” more which this story resembles closely. That novel was written by Jack Finney and they were written about the same time. Finney’s allegory about the Red Scare of the 1950s is deliberately thinly veiled. Dick’s story is not an allegory, but an attempt to convey the horror of a child. As we all know from being children, the imagined horrors of our youth are the most intense. Dick does an adequate, but not superb job in capturing that.

The Distributor
By Richard Matheson
Submitted by Ed Gorman

A new man moves into Joseph Alston’s neighborhood and promptly introduces himself to Alston as Theodore Gordon. At first, Gordon seems amicable enough. But soon, he starts to “redistribute” the belongings of his neighbors. When they complain, Gordon seizes control of the neighborhood through nefarious and prurient means.

I have a passion for Matheson’s work. I have read about half of it and am looking forward to taking more soon. He is rivaled only by Bradbury in his ability to tell great genre short stories. Matheson’s prose is a forerunner to that of writers such as Stephen King who tells great tales in a straightforward manner (usually). The Distributor is just another of Matheson’s wonderful stories. Certainly not his best, but I’ve never read or seen anything by Matheson I would call bad.

The thing about Matheson is, almost everybody is familiar with his work, but they don’t know it. He wrote 13 scripts for Rod Serling’s “Twilight Zone” including several of its most famous episodes like “Terror at 20,000 Feet”. He wrote I Am Legend that has been made into three different movies. He also is known for blending romance and fantasy in such books made into movies as Somewhere in Time and What Dreams May Come.

A Warning to the Curious
By M.R. James
Submitted by Ramsey Campbell

A young man spins a tale in an English country inn about great and powerful artifacts of a forgotten age buried in the countryside. He convinces two older gentlemen to help him unearth these artifacts. Someone lives to tell the tale. . .

This is the one story in the book I really did not enjoy. Campbell tells us he appreciates the “lightness” of James’ writing. I found it dull. I liked the story concept a great deal. The two older gentlemen remind me of members of “The Chowder Society” of Peter Straub’s Ghost Story. However, sometimes the failing of a story is in the poor telling of a good tale.

Opening the Door
By Arthur Machen
Submitted by Peter Atkins

A cynical journalist recounts his encounter with a man known as “The Canonbury Clergyman”. His interviews with the clergyman leave him with large gaps in his memory and disorients him in a way that is hard to reconcile with his journalist’s hardened sensibilities. When the clergyman vanishes, he recounts it as perhaps the only true case of a human being truly disappearing from existence.

I like the journalist character who, as a Fleet Street tabloid writer, is a bit of an anti-hero. Machen tells the tale as any journalist would – events chronologically told with insights from the author. It reads like a feature article from a newspaper. Machen was a journalist by trade, so he was in his element when he wrote it. This was my first experience with Machen and he’s an author more of whose works I hope to read.



The Colour Out of Space
By H.P. Lovecraft
Submitted by Richard Laymon

A meteor crashes into a New England farm. Soon, the family living on that farm devolve from human beings into subhuman beings. His neighbors and the local constabulary investigate to find the greatest horror man has ever known.

Lovecraft never tells a tale from the point of view of the victims of horror. Lovecraft’s narrative always comes from a third party observer. That is how Lovecraft terrifies the reader without ever quite showing the source of that terror. This story is a rare instance when the narrator is directly engaged in the action and sees the nature of the horror – a meteor whose description is of no color, yet of all colors. Stephen King retold this tale in a campy fashion for his anthology movie, “Creepshow”.

The Inner Room
By Robert Aickman
Submitted by Peter Straub

A young girl acquires a large dollhouse from a country antique store. The dollhouse is large enough that an entire room is required to accommodate it. Parts of it are strangely inaccessible, although its features can be observed through windows – except for room in the center of the house. The secrets of that room and that house will go on to dominate the girl and her brother into their adult years.

I read this story in a series of short installments and that may have made the experience less rewarding. I found the description of the house confusing and impossible to picture in my own mind. However, as the kids grow and the memories of the house instead of the house itself , come to the fore, the story really picks up and finishes nicely.

Young Goodman Brown
By Nathaniel Hawthorne
Submitted by Rick Hautula

A young man ventures into the woods on a quest to discover his own nature and test his own morals. While there, the true nature of his wife, friends, and associates is revealed in its most debased form. Brown’s own morality is tested and he is tempted with his basest desires by the devil himself.

I read this in college and enjoyed it a great deal. I did not enjoy it so much when rereading. Some stories can only by enjoyed once, I think. I’m not a fan of classical literature – preferring modern prose. However, it is impossible to not acknowledge the contributions of early writers like Hawthorne to the development of genre fiction.

The Rats in the Walls
By H.P. Lovecraft
Submitted by Michael Slade

A young man, traveling by bicycle through New England, tries to find shelter in what appears to be an empty house. But the house is not empty. It is inhabited by a absurdly weird man who has a number of guests “living” upstairs.

I’ve read almost all of Lovecraft’s fiction and this story still ranks as my favorite. The key component of Lovecraft’s fiction is dread. Seldom do we witness the horror – whether it precedes the story or is the climax. In this story, as in most others, our imagination finishes the tale for us much better than any written word. Lovecraft knew, perhaps better than any other writer, how to let the reader’s imagination finish the tale.

The Dog Park
By Dennis Etchison
Submitted by Richard Matheson

In the wealthiest of suburbs in Los Angeles, there is a dog park utilized by the rich and the famous – and their dogs. The hero of the story lost his dog in that park and isn’t quite sure why. He goes back to explore the park and meets a woman. As they talk, the woman’s dog meets its fate and the man learns the park’s secrets.

While this was an enjoyable tale, the social commentary was entirely too thinly veiled as to detract from the story. I have to believe Matheson has read better fiction than ths.

The Animal Fair
By Robert Bloch
Submitted by Joe R. Lansdale

A drifter comes across a traveling “jungle show” and is horrified with inhuman cruelty which the show’s host submits the show’s prime exhibit – a trained gorilla. After leaving the show, the drifter is hitchhiking when he is picked up by the show’s master. As they travel across the country – with the poor ape in tow – the circus master relates his own tale of inhuman cruelty done to him.

While the nature of the tale is much different than that of Psycho, the telling is the same. There’s no supernatural or fantastic element to the story. It’s just a horrific tale of the sometimes inhumane nature of man.

The Pattern
By Ramsey Campbell
Submitted by Poppy Z. Brite

A young couple – the man an artist and the woman a writer – rent a secluded cabin in the English country. Their first night there, the hear a horrific scream which could only be human. They search for its source and can find no evidence of anything amiss. When they make inquiries of the locals, they are told some secrets are better left undiscovered.

The story was decent, but what struck me was how vividly Campbell can describe a setting or scene. While good settings are an element of a story, they usually can’t carry a story. Here, Campbell’s brilliant descriptions elevate an average story to brilliant.

The Tell-Tale Heart
By Edgar Allan Poe
Submitted by Joyce Carol Oates

A young man slays a rival and conceals his body beneath the floor boards of his home. He tries to convince himself of both the infallibility of his concealment and the righteousness of his deed. When the inspectors arrive to search for the missing man, he smugly invites them in to examine his abode, quite confident they will not find the missing body. But the beating of the heart. . .if he can hear it, can the inspectors?

It is impossible to take a high school literature class and not be assigned this story. It is one of the most famous stories in history, spoofed, imitated and retold countless times. Poe’s legacy is the most enduring of any American horror writer.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
By Ambrose Bierce
Submitted by Dennis Etchison

A confederate spy is about to hang for attempting to sabotage the Owl Creek Bridge. The hanging goes awry and he escapes into the river below. He eludes the Union troops pursuing him until he gets home when. . . .

I first read this story when I was in grade school and it was my first experience with a plot twist. It made an indelible impression on me. I forgot the author, but never the story, until I was in high school when it assigned in a literature class. Now, the name Ambrose Bierce, for me, will be forever linked to everything that is great in short fiction.

Bierce wrote more than one hundred short stories – mostly real life or supernatural horror from the Civil War. This particular story was adapted into a 22 minute film, without dialogue, for Rod Serling’s “Twilight Zone” with exceptional quality. It was also adapted for radio for the CBS Radio Mystery Theater in the 1970s.

The Human Chair
By Edogawa Rampo
Submitted by Harlan Ellison

A Japanese writer receives a strange letter from a furniture maker, telling her of how he designed a chair that allows him to hide inside it, undetected. He recounts how he used the chair to take up residence in an expensive hotel and make a living as a thief. Soon, his use of the chair becomes more prurient and horrifying.

This story had a delightful twist. It was originally written in Japanese and the translation is sometimes a bit stilted – lapsing into passive voice when active voice would have b been better. Nonetheless, Ellison promises a horror story to rival anything written by American or British authors and he does not disappoint.

President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime by Lou Cannon

President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime
By Lou Cannon
Copyright 1991

Lou Cannon is the most prolific writer on the subject of Ronald Reagan, having written three tomes on the Gipper. Among his works are Governor Reagan, Reagan, Ronnie and Jesse: A Political Odyssey, and President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime. Cannon covered Reagan for the San Jose Mercury News while Reagan was governor of California and covered him in the White House as senior White House correspondent for the Washington Post.

This volume is perhaps the most expansive examination of the Reagan record ever published. Cannon engages in political analysis, describing how Reagan rose to power in both California and the United States and how he avoided being tattooed with major scandals such as the “homosexual scandal” that occurred within his executive office when he was governor of California, and Iran-Contra.

Cannon also delves deep into psychoanalysis, trying to determine what in the shielded psyche of Ronald Reagan made it so easy for him to connect with the American people, yet so difficult to connect with individuals on a personal level – including his own children.

There is also some policy analysis, although not as much as one would like. Cannon provides more of a chronology of policy than analysis. In politics, as in nature, for every action there is a reaction. Cannon examines both the good and bad that came from Reagan’s policies and actions as president.

As the title implies, Cannon looks at Reagan’s political career as a performance. Reagan’s detractors often criticized him for being little more than an actor and mocked him for his profession (as if there are only certain professions that prepare one for the presidency).

Cannon’s thesis is that Ronald Reagan was an actor playing a president. This may sound condescending or pejorative, but Cannon intends no disrespect to Reagan or the presidency. He describes in great detail how Reagan’s acting ability helped him achieve the presidency, maintain spectacular popularity ratings through most of his presidency, and conduct the office with a degree of style and flair that served his ends as well as those of the American people.

Perhaps it was more Reagan’s tenure as a pitchman for General Electric that prepared him for the presidency than his movie career. To be a successful salesman, one must believe in what he is selling. Reagan believed in what he was selling – even when that belief had little ground in fact. His advisers and even many of his critics that knew him say he was incapable of lying. He sometimes chose to believe things that weren’t true.

Reagan’s reliance on scripts figures heavily into Cannon’s analysis. Cannon documents three shining moments in his presidential debates where the answers, while well thought out, are supposed to be spontaneous.

His first moment where he shone was sort of spontaneous. In a New Hampshire debate in 1980, Reagan was speaking into a microphone, arguing over whether all of the Republican candidates should be allowed to participate or just he and George Bush. As Reagan, whose campaign funded the debate, argued for allowing all of the candidates on the stage, a debate moderator asked that the microphone be turned off. Reagan shouted into that microphone, “Mr. Breen [sic], I’m paying for this microphone.” The press took notice. No one remembered the substance of the debate.

Certainly the emotion was spontaneous as the Reagan and Bush campaigns had argued for several days over whether or not to limit the number of candidates. However, the line was similar to a line that Reagan had once used in a movie.

When he debated Jimmy Carter in Cleveland in 1980, he delivered a body blow to Carter with the quip, “There you go again!” Reagan and his debate coaches knew Carter was going to make claims that Reagan planned to cut social security. The claim had dogged Reagan in the primaries and continued to resonate with older voters. Nobody remembers the substance of that debate, or even that issue. What they remember was the plaintive dismissal in Reagan’s voice when he delivered the line. It resonated enough to mask Reagan’s otherwise tenuous grip on hard policy questions.

“I promise not to make my opponent’s youth or inexperience an issue in this campaign,” was the line Reagan used to get back on the offensive in the 1984 campaign against Walter Mondale. Mondale had beaten Reagan badly in their first debate, demonstrating a strong grasp of policy while Reagan struggled with the facts and figures he’d rehearsed. Reagan and his campaign struggled to develop a debate strategy for their candidate who was strong with “the vision thing” but weak with policy. They decided to “let Reagan be Reagan,” and deliver a one-liner that would serve as the sound bite on the news. The strategy paid off as Reagan’s poll numbers rebounded after the debate.

Cannon asserts that Reagan relied on scripts to conduct his entire presidency. Reagan worked well with a Tel-E-Promp-Ter, but preferred index cards. Not only did he use these index cards for speeches, he used them for policy meetings. Cannon makes a large issue of this, but oddly, the people he met with when using his notes did not.

Reagan was not a man who grasped the intricacies of government policy or mechanics well. An argument can be made that a president doesn’t need to. Jimmy Carter was probably the most wonkish president in history, yet was an abysmal failure. Because Reagan had to read his points from prepared notes does not mean he didn’t believe them or that they weren’t true. It simply means that he wasn’t able to remember all of them.

Another Reagan tool – one that was sometimes used against his administration – was the anecdote. While Reagan couldn’t remember the percentage of American adults receiving AFDC, he could remember a story and he had literally thousands of anecdotes memorized that he could draw on to make points and achieve policy objectives. Some of the anecdotes were of dubious origin. Nonetheless, they served him well.

One anecdote that Reagan applied forcefully and with great success was that of the Welfare Queen. A woman by the name of Linda Taylor from Chicago had created more than 80 aliases through which she was able to obtain welfare benefits and cheat the government out of thousands of dollars. While most people on welfare were barely able to subsist, Reagan made her emblematic of a wasteful and inefficient welfare system. The story of the Welfare Queen became ingrained in the American psyche. It was a story I heard from my father and grandmother (the two most anti-welfare people I ever knew) repeatedly as they tried hard to instill in me a work ethic.

Reagan without a script was uneven at best. Aides lived in fear whilst Reagan conducted press conferences. When talking about ideas, Reagan the performer did fine. When pressed on policy issues, Reagan stumbled, slipped, and was often incoherent. Reminded of something he’d said earlier in his presidency or even earlier that day, Reagan would often ask, “did I say that?” Obviously Reagan would have failed as an improv comedian.

Cannon’s psychoanalysis centers on Reagan’s boyhood and being raised by an alcoholic father. As Cannon points out, children of alcoholics hate confrontation, discord, or disagreement. Reagan’s father, when drinking, had a quick temper and there were undoubtedly many tense moments in the Reagan household. These children also tend to be introverted, not forming close bonds or friendships.

Reagan hated confrontation much more than the average person. He hated arguments in his presence. He could not fire aides that clearly needed to be dismissed. When arguments arose or tempers flared in his presence, he withdrew mentally. As a result, policy matters were usually resolved outside of his presence and the consensus delivered to him with for his approval or amendment.

This would seem to make for a weak presidency. In Reagan’s case, it did not. In his first term, Reagan had a strong executive office, headed by James Baker, an old Bush hand from Texas. Baker controlled the flow of paper, people, and ideas to the Oval Office with great effectiveness. Reagan knew what he wanted to achieve. He knew what he believed in. If policy arrived at his desk and presented to him in a manner true to those beliefs, he approved. If they did not, Reagan could be stubborn to a fault.

In confronting people, Reagan ill-served himself, the country and the world. Al Haig created many problems within the cabinet and with the American people with his imperious conduct as Secretary of State. Despite the pleas of close aides such as Michael Deaver and Baker, Reagan could not bring himself to fire him. Not until Haig started delivering ultimatums to the Oval Office was Reagan forced to ask for his resignation.

Another case is Secretary of the Interior James Watt. That this buffoon ever held a cabinet position is testimony to the fact that even idiots can achieve high office. Watt made many insensitive and intemperate remarks, calling a presidential commission, “A black, a woman, two Jews, and a cripple. And we have talent” That remark alone was not enough to get Watt fired by Reagan. It was not until the outcry became so loud from his supporters that he could no longer ignore Watt’s idiocy that he acted.

An issue often brought up by his detractors was Reagan’s intelligence, or lack thereof. Cannon skirts this issue. Cannon does not seem to regard Reagan as being dumb, and he should not. Reagan was not the most intellectually gifted of presidents. I would argue that the presidency does not require advanced degrees or high I.Q.s. Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, Carter, and Woodrow Wilson were all intellectually gifted, yet did not achieve great results. Meanwhile, men of lesser intellect such as Abraham Lincoln, John Kennedy, and Reagan excelled in the office. The Presidency requires the ability to lead people – sometimes where they do not want to go. Reagan had this quality. As to his intelligence, most people who knew him thought him to be a man of above average intelligence with a gift for speaking and writing.

With Reagan, people out of sight were out of mind. He had no close friends and was not close to his children. He often forgot the names of even his closest aides, hurting their feelings and lowering their morale. He seemed to care little about them as people. This is not to say Reagan was without compassion. As I noted earlier, Reagan used anecdotes to serve his purpose. Sometimes, his opponents used anecdotes as well. Shown how a policy or action hurt someone in real life, Reagan was prone to surrender and his aides tried to shield him from this. This was a strategy employed by Nancy Reagan often when she wanted to move the president in a particular direction.

Cannon is clearly an opponent of most of Reagan’s domestic policies. He illuminates the debate within an administration that had promised to cut taxes and balance the budget. Fierce battles were waged by both sides since both sides knew only one could be accomplished. The tax cutters won. Reagan never presented a balanced budget in his eight years and dramatically increased the federal deficit.

Despite these deficits, the economy turned around and the longest period of economic expansion in our nation’s history began. When Reagan took office, economists were in a quandary because the Phillips curve – the inverse ratio between unemployment and inflation – had broken down. The nation had been through two periods of stagflation with high unemployment and inflation. The Keynesian model of spending the way out of a recession and cutting spending to reduce inflation no longer held. Under the leadership of Chairman Paul Volcker, the Federal Reserve began manipulating the economy through monetary policy. By expanding and contracting the supply of capital available, the Fed hoped to control inflation. Monetary policy as a tool for manipulating the economy emerged in the Reagan years.

The experiment worked, but with terrible consequences. By late 1981, the prime interest rate was near 21 percent. No one could afford to purchase a home or car. Inflation fell dramatically and unemployment soared to levels not seen since the Great Depression. By 1983, with inflation at an acceptable four percent, the Fed began to lower interest rates and the economy eventually took off. Reagan, whose popularity had sunk to the low 40s, proclaimed it “morning again in America.” Soon, his popularity would rise to 70 percent, making him the most popular president in the era of polling.

In Reagan’s conduct of foreign affairs, Cannon is a bit more complimentary. The START Treaty with the Soviet Union stands as Reagan’s greatest achievement and Cannon carefully documents the genesis of the idea and the negotiations that led to the landmark treaty.

Reagan strongly believed in the biblical prophecy of Armageddon. He feared nuclear war and despised the concept of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) as a guarantor of peace. He discarded the notion of the Cold War being the uneasy coexistence of competing ideologies. A Cold War was a war and wars are fought to be won.

To win, Reagan needed to negotiate with the Soviets from a position of strength. He recognized his opponent as being weaker, with the Soviet economy withering under the burden of defense spending. Reagan rearmed the nation with an unprecedented level of peacetime defense spending, causing massive deficits. He also introduced the concept of the Strategic Defense Initiative or “Star Wars” as the media dubbed it.

SDI frightened the Soviets. Whether SDI was practical as a concept or a dream of Reagan’s we will never know. But the Soviets took it seriously. After watching Soviet leaders Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, and Konstanin Chernenko – all hardline cold warriors – die, Reagan found in Mikhail Gorbachev and communist with whom he could do business.

In Gorbachev’s mind, stopping the development of SDI was top priority. Reagan stubbornly held on, claiming it as his duty to protect American citizens from nuclear war. Whether it was science fiction, abstract policy, or cutting edge technology, SDI drove the Soviets nuts. Reagan used this leverage to his advantage in negotiating with Gorbachev.

Cannon gives Reagan high marks for imagination, vision, and daring to great things in the area of foreign policy. Before Reagan, treaties between the super powers limited the expansion of nuclear arsenals and defense systems. Reagan’s imagination led to the actual reduction of those arsenals and he dreamed of a day when those arsenals will be gone. Despite having no significant foreign policy experience, Reagan achieved what only his imagination could have envisioned during the hottest point of the Cold War: the partial disarmament of the world’s nuclear arsenal.

Cannon devotes two chapters to the Iran-Contra scandal and is hyper-critical of Reagan. That it was a foreign policy blunder cannot be argued. That it violated the law is not in contention. How much blame Reagan bears for the blunder is a matter of contention.

The earliest development of the scandal came from the noble vision of national security advisor Bud McFarlane. With relations between the US and Iran non-existent after the Khomeini government seized American hostages was non existent. McFarlane envisioned a diplomatic breakthrough with Iran similar to what Nixon had achieved with China. Khomeini was in ill health (although he would go on to live another eight years) and McFarlane was receptive to moderates within the Iranian government who promised warmer relations with the US in exchange for arms with which to fight Iraq. The carrot they used to lure McFarlane was the release of American hostages being held in Lebanon.

In his eagerness to achieve this magnificent diplomatic coup, however, McFarlane ignored State Department intelligence that his primary contact in Iran was actually a great bullshit artist who had little influence within the country. McFarlane made deals and sold the Iranians anti-aircraft missiles and other military hardware from Israeli stocks, then replaced those Israeli stocks with American equipment. Each time McFarlane made an arms shipment, one hostage was released. Unfortunately, more hostages were taken.

McFarlane eventually burned out, knowing he’d been had. His replacement, John Poindexter, continued the policy, but sold the arms at a highly inflated price and deposited the profits in a Swiss bank account. It was from that account that Poindexter aide Col. Oliver North withdrew funds and diverted them to the Contra rebels, fighting the Marxist Sandinista government in Nicaragua. This was in direct violation of a law passed by Congress prohibiting the use of American funds to aid the Contras. Much of that money never made it to the Contras. It went into the pockets of another Poindexter aide, Richard Secord who simply took it to enrich himself.

When the scandal broke, the old Watergate question of “What did he know and when did he know it,” began haunting Reagan. Reagan assured the nation that he did not trade arms for hostages. A special presidential commission was appointed and a congressional committee also investigated. Meanwhile, the American public grew skeptical of Reagan’s claims and his approval rating took the most precipitous drop in national history.

Reagan continued to resist the notion that he’d approved the deal, even when presented with incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. Finally, with the scandal eroding his ability to govern and the unspoken threat of impeachment hanging over his head, Reagan went on national television and confessed that, despite his own belief that he had not, the evidence showed that he did approve the deal. With the admission, his poll numbers went up again. Reagan did what is so rare for presidents in our nation’s history: he admitted he made a mistake.

Cannon blames Reagan’s detachment from his policy making apparatus for this. Cannon does not take into account that when Reagan gave his approval, he was recovering from cancer surgery, having had several linear feet of his large intestine removed. Trading arms for hostages was no doubt an egregious policy error. However, decisions made while recovering from that kind of surgery have to be suspect and Reagan should have never been put in the position of making that decision at that time. The fault there lies with chief of staff, Donald Regan.

No one was ever able to prove that Reagan knew about the diversion of funds to the Contras. Cannon is more forgiving here, stating that no one presented any hard evidence that showed Reagan approved or knew of the diversion. Even North, at his congressional testimony and his criminal trial, refused to blame Reagan for this blunder.
gn policy as the Cold War ended and tensio

I have more historical insight now than Cannon had 20 years ago when he wrote this book. Iran-Contra had very little effect on American foreins in the Middle East heated up. It was a policy blunder of the highest magnitude. But its effect on the nation and the world was negligible.

As I stated earlier, Reagan started his presidency with a strong team within his executive office that balanced out what was a weak cabinet. Baker was a masterful chief of staff who ran the White House staff with efficiency, offset his boss’ weaknesses, and made sure that Reagan was well prepared for his duties each day. He had a stellar supporting cast in men like Michael Deaver, Richard Wirthlin, and Ken Duberstein.

The cabinet started out weak, but got better. However, Reagan relied very little on his cabinet. He also provided very little oversight of it. As a result, more government officials were convicted of crimes during the Reagan presidency than any other – even surpassing the Grant administration. George Schultz was an improvement over Haig and his appointment helped Reagan gain a better understanding of international relations. Jean Kirkpatrick’s name is now lost in history. But her work as the United Nation’s ambassador lifted the perception of the United States to levels not seen since the end of World War II.

While most cabinet officers were incredibly average, Reagan’s justice department was never up to par. William French Smith tolerated way too much corruption in a department whose sole purpose was to assure lawful conduct. One area where Cannon and I are in strong agreement is that Ed Meese was a total failure as an Attorney General and was an overall liability to Reagan at Justice and as deputy chief of staff. A man with a tin ear, callous attitude, and disregard for the necessity of compliance with the law and the perception of compliance was doomed to be a failure.

Reagan’s second term was less successful primarily because of the appointment of Donald Regan as Chief of Staff. Where Baker cultivated the press on behalf of Reagan, Regan disdained the press. When he did talk to them, it was for his own aggrandizement. Instead of offsetting Reagan’s weaknesses, he played to them to ingratiate himself. Presidents need to be protected from their own impulses and the bad ideas of others. Baker was exceptional. Regan was horrible. It was Regan who allowed Iran Contra to land in the Oval Office. When Howard Baker replaced Regan in 1986 at the behest of Nancy Reagan and Republican members of Congress, Reagan regained his footing and was able to move his tax reform plan through a congress controlled by the Democrats.

Cannon concludes by saying Reagan was successful in that he dared to dream great dreams, see greatness in America, and communicates well with the American people. He goes on to state that Reagan was too far removed and too disengaged from the day to day operations of government or even the activity of his own cabinet. Both conclusions are probably true. However, Reagan subscribed to a management style employed by many in the public and private sector. Select good people for the job and let them do the job. With few exceptions, Reagan did this.

What Cannon does not say, and is without contention, is that Reagan left the country and the world a better place than when he found it. That is the proper measurement of an effective president and Ronald Reagan stands higher than most of his predecessors in that regard.

Blue World by Robert R. McCammon

Robert R. McCammon
Blue World
Coyright 1990

This is McCammon’s only volume of short stories. This volume includes:

Yellowjacket Summer

A young woman and her two children run out of gas in a strange town straight out of the Twilight Zone. It seems the hot summer brings out the bees --- and they terrify.

Makeup

A small time thug ends up with the makeup case of a famous horror actor. Was the long deceased actor brilliant, or was the secret in his makeup? One of the better stories in the book.

Doom City

Brad wakes up one morning and finds the wife he went to bed with the night before has turned into a desiccated corpse. He wanders about the town and finds himself alone – almost! This reminded me of a Twilight Zone episode. This story is the kind that Stephen King used to be able to write. Nothing but the barest essence of a story here. But the plot is intriguing and chugs right along. Masterful writing!

Nightcrawlers

A strange traveler comes in from a storm into a truckstop and brings the stuff of his nightmares with him. Seems his old buddies from Vietnam are eager to have him join them where he left them. This one reminded me a little of Straub’s Koko only much better.

Pin

This is a strange, first person narrative of a young man contemplating sticking a needle in his eye. This is the weakest story in the book. I’ll give McCammon credit for a creative approach and an unusual story. However, I did not care for it.

Yellachile’s Cage

A voodoo man keeps a gold finch in his prison cell. The bird is his familiar who keeps him informed of all that is going on in the prison. The only well-kept secret in the prison is the voodoo man’s. I like a good prison story (King wrote two brilliant prison stories) and McCammon did not disappoint me with this one.

I Scream Man!

An ordinary game of Scrabble between the most incredibly average family in a most unusual setting. Again, just the bare essence of story, but McCammon makes the most of his few words.

He’ll Come Knocking At Your Door

Halloween is taken very seriously by members of this community and its leading citizen is generous with his treats but evil with his tricks. Reminiscent of Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown.

Chico

In a home with a abusive, alcoholic father and despondent mother, a child with a special gift lives and thrives. Perhaps the weakest story in the book.

Night Calls the Green Falcon

An over-the-hill star of Saturday serials is called out of retirement by his conscience to find the serial killer who killed his neighbor. This story is hokey and cornball, but well written and a pleasure to read.

The Red House

A young boy’s dad is outraged when a bright red house springs up in his entirely gray world. An excellent allegory on why sometimes change should be feared!

Something Passed By

Earth is in decline after the passage on an interstellar object. The people who are left in the end pass the time in a variety of ways. This one reminded me of an old radio show like X Minus 1 or Dimension X.

Blue World

This is one of the finest stories I’ve ever read. McCammon shows us, as he did in Swan Song that he is a true master of character development. A priest’s faith and vowels are tested when he finds himself oddly attracted to a porn star. A chance encounter at a grocery store thrusts him into her world of drugs, sex, and the desire to be something more. Meanwhile, he struggles to remain chaste and save the young woman’s soul.

John Adams by David McCullough

John Adams
David McCullough
Copyright 2001

McCullough’s biography of this revolutionary hero, statesman, and president is the best non-fiction book I've ever read.

McCullough carefully reconstructs the life of our leading patriot, first vice president, and second president. He reconstructs Adams' relationship with his loving and supportive wife, Abigail, his adoring and sometimes wayward children, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin (whom he did not care for), and other contemporaries.

History has portrayed Adams as a regal aristocrat, detached from his countrymen and favoring monarchical government. While McCullough does not dismiss this assessment, he does demonstrate how Adams believed in the Revolution, believed in American independence, and believed in democracy and federalism.

Adams disapproved of the actions of the Sons of Liberty led by his cousin, Samuel Adams, who frequently engaged in civil disobedience and radical behavior in the name of independence. However, the calm political leadership of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and other members was in synergy with the brazen Sons of Liberty in declaring our independence of the motherland and establishing the world’s first true republic.

The Vice President in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries took their role as President of the Senate seriously. Adams established this precedent. He presided over the Senate daily and cast 29 tie-breaking votes, surpassed only by John C. Calhoun in his influence on policy in the Senate as its presiding officer. However, Adams detested the vice presidency and grew resentful of Washington who was still a national hero. For all his acclaim as a general, Adams felt he'd be a better president.

As president, Adams stubborn nature, regal attitude, and rebuke of the conduct of the rebels and their execution of their opponents in the French Revolution quickly made him unpopular with Congress and his countrymen. He did provide steady leadership in keeping America out of a formally declared war it could not win, kept the national economy stable in a time when banks printed their own money, and helped open the west for national expansion.

For all that he accomplished however, he will always be stained by the Alien and Sedition Act. This act, advanced by Adams and signed into law, made it illegal to criticize the actions of the government. It stands as perhaps the most un-American action by any president in history. With French immigrants flooding the country as France descended into chaos, there was much agitation for war. Adams was pilloried for being an anglophile and his detractors claimed he wanted to establish for himself a new crown in the US. The Alien and Sedition Act was designed to silence these critics. McCullough partially excuses Adams conduct by putting it in the context of the times and the events. While I an ardent foe of engaging in the fallacy of historical presentism, it must be noted that there is a reason why the first amendment is first among the constitutional amendments. It is from the first amendment that all other freedoms flow. Adams cannot be pardoned for such an egregious curtailment of that freedom.

The relationship between patriots Adams and Jefferson is one of the most complex and studied in American history. It is usually told from Jefferson's point of view because Jefferson has fared better in history. When examined from Adams' point of view, it is not hard not to sympathize with Adams' disgust with his former friend, especially his callous treatment of Abigail. Jefferson was a cunning politician and usually vicious to his adversaries. He and Adams strongly disagreed over foreign policy and the slings and arrows directed at Adams by Jefferson were slanderous and libelous.

It is hard to imagine such enmity developing between two close friends whose partnership created a new nation. But the feelings on both sides were strong and bitter. The two men did not speak for many years. Late in their lives, after Abigail had died and Adams was an elderly widow, their friendship was rekindled. It was once again a warm relationship between two men looking back with humility at the nation they birthed.

McCullough is kind to and reverent of Abigail Adams. There is no doubt that Abigail Adams was possessed of an intellect far above most women of her day. Her mind was sharp as was her tongue. She was Adams’ closest advisor in all things political and private and Adams would not have risen to his high status in colonial and American politics without her counsel.

Biographers of her son, John Quincy Adams, are less complimentary of Abigail. Paul Nagel lays at Abigail’s feet the alcoholism that plagued her children and her grandchildren. Much like Joe Kennedy did to his sons, Abigail drove her sons hard to succeed. All of the Adams children strove for Abigail’s approval, but seldom got it. Nagel as well as JQA biographer Francis Russell and Robert Remini agree with this conclusion. They acknowledge her intelligence and her positive influence on John Adams’ career in politics, but conclude that she was a domineering, overbearing mother, mother-in-law, and grandmother.

Alcohol would become the bane of the Adams family. Alcoholism can be genetic and Abigail’s uncle and grandfather were both alcoholics. John Adams greatest misery lied not with his constant battles with the Francophiles, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson. It was his constant worry over his sons who – with the exception of John Quincy Adams – battled the demon alcohol unsuccessfully throughout their lives. Unfortunately for Adams, he would live long enough to see his grandsons fight and lose that same battle.

One of the most engaging bits of writing I’ve ever read was McCullough’s description of the treatment of Nabby Adams' breast cancer. Nabby was the Adams’ oldest daughter. When began experiencing chest pains and found a lump in one of her breasts, even doctors of that era recognized a tumor and knew its only treatment.

Keep in mind, there was no anesthesia at that time. Nor were their surgical clamps or any real surgical technique. Yet the breast had to be removed. While McCullough is tasteful and does not engage in gratuitous gore, it is impossible to not be moved by the account of the doctor taking a sharp knife and cutting off Nabby’s breast while she bit down on a stick.

The exceptional quality of this book lies not in its subject. John Adams, while fascinating in his role of shaping the nation, is not the most fascinating of presidents. It is David McCullough’s writing. The world is full of great historians who unearth new ideas and points of view through tedious study of primary documents and newly discovered material. However, a writer of McCullough’s ability is rare. He has peers in historians such as Stephen Ambrose and Francis Russell. But McCullough is the best.

HBO made a five part miniseries based on McCullough's book. Adams is portrayed admirably by Paul Giamatti. The miniseries is true to history and to McCullough's account. It is entertaining and engaging even for someone not dedicated to the study of American history or the American presidency.

The Blackstone Chronicles by John Saul

The Blackstone Chronicles
by John Saul
Copyright 1997
Six Volumes - serialized

Recalling the age of Dickens, when novels were published in serialized booklets, Stephen King published a serialized novel in 1996 called The Green Mile. Following King’s success, John Saul published his own serialized novel called The Blackstone Chronicles. While King is the superior writer and his story is better, Saul makes better use of the serialization process to tell his story.

Saul's story centers on an abandoned asylum in the town of Blackstone. Unspeakable horrors were committed there in its 100 year history. Unfortunately for the mentally ill of the last century, many of Saul's fictional tortures are based in fact.

The first five installments are named for relics from the asylum, delivered to carefully selected Blackstone residents by an unknown and unseen presence that lurks in the abandoned building. Those relics visit upon their recipients the mental illness that afflicted their original owners.

The central character in the story is Oliver Metcalf, publisher of the town newspaper and a direct descendant of the asylum's owner and operator. Each installment opens with the history of the relic and the ultimate demise of its original owner.

The first installment is called An Eye for an Eye: The Doll. This package is delivered to the family of the contractor who envisions redeveloping the asylum into a shopping center. Soon after the antique doll is found on their doorstep, his wife miscarries. She soon covets the doll as if it were own child. Her insanity leads to her family's demise.

The next installment is entitled Twist of Fate: The Locket . The locket containing a small lock of hair is delivered to the town banker who plans to finance the conversion of the asylum into a shopping center. The banker is under investigation for not properly collatoralizing his loans. The soft-hearted banker hates to repossess belongings and foreclosing on homes. His charity creates problems for his bank. His charitable heart hardens quickly after he finds the locket in the snow outside his house. He starts to believe that his bank employees are scheming against him and his wife cheating on him. As his paranoia grows, he ultimately destroys himself.

Installment three is Ashes to Ashes: The Dragon's Flame. Oliver Metcalf's girlfriend, Rebecca purchases an antique lighter to give to her prodigal cousin who is returning home after her boyfriend left her pregnant and alone in New York City. Rebecca's aunt is religious and does not approve of her daughter being in her home, but feels it is her duty as a mother to guide her daughter back to God. Her daughter doesn't want any part of it and has an abortion. Meanwhile, as she lights more and more cigarettes with the antique lighter, she becomes increasingly hostile and irrational. Fire is her demise.

Book four is entitled In the Shadow of Evil: The Handkerchief. With her aunt and ward dead, Rebecca goes to live with the town librarian and her domineering mother. Rebecca receives an ornate handkerchief from Oliver who found it in his attic. The spinster librarian -- a cruel woman -- takes it from Rebecca and gives it to her elderly mother as a gift. Mom, being every bit as nasty as her daughter, rejects the gift and gives it back. Delusions of snakes and insects pursue the librarian through her home and the library until she meets her end in a very difficult position.

The fifth relic arrives in book five entitled Day of Reckoning: The Stereoscope. Attorney Ed Becker, who is conducting the legal work to convert the asylum into a shopping center, spots an antique dresser in one of its rooms. He brings it home to restore and finds in one of its drawers an antique stereoscope and six photographs to go with it. All of the photographs are of the interior of his home as it appeared 100 years ago. As Ed enjoys the antique viewer, he begins to feel guilt for his life's work. Once a criminal defense attorney, he had successfully defended more than a dozen clients who went on to murder more people. As the stereoscope provides a window on the past, Ed's past comes to haunt him more and more. The victims of his life's work start to visit and, while Ed survives, his life is dramatically altered for the worse. As Rebecca is leaving the latest scene of horror, she is kidnapped and taken to the asylum to dwell with its lone, evil resident.

The series finale is entitled Asylum. The residents of Blackstone are terrified as tragedy after tragedy has befallen their town over the last five months. Oliver, always frightened by the asylum that loomed on a hill above his house, finally enters the building to find Rebecca and confront the evil perpetrated on him and others in its foreboding rooms. Long forgotten memories of his sister's "accidental" death and his father's psychological practice resurface. Meanwhile, the town constable discovers the clue he needs to identify the entity that dwells within the asylum and moves to get there before Rebecca meets her doom. The story's climax is outstanding.

Saul did much better than King at serializing because each of Saul's books stood alone as a story where The Green Mile was a continuous story told in installments. Saul -- unlike King -- seldom writes postscripts to his novels. At the end of Blackstone, he describes how he developed the idea of serialization after King's success and the assistance King provided him in publishing over a six month period. Writing serialized books is a challenge because the first part of the story is already in the reader's hands while the author struggles to find the correct ending. It's also easy to make continuity mistakes and Blackstone has a few -- as does The Green Mile. Saul acknowledges these and notes that they are corrected in the fully bound edition that came out after the serialization was complete.

Saul's books are usually entirely plot driven. Characters and settings are developed adequately for the purpose of the story, but lack the depth of King's characters, or even Dean Koontz's characters. (Unfortunately, all of Koontz's characters are the same). In his postscript, Saul talks about how he fell in love with Blackstone and its inhabitants as he wrote and it shows in his development of his characters and the town. This makes The Blackstone Chronicles one of Saul's very best works.

I have the six installments as they were originally published. While the words are the same, I think this is the only way to properly read the story. As I wrote, each book stands as an independent story. To read it as one book will change that flavor.

Patriarch by Richard Norton Smith

Patriarch
by Richard Norton Smith

Patriarch recounts the life of George Washington from his presidency through his death. We learn of how the most revered figure in America's short history was brought low by the uncertainty of leading a young nation, yet emerged from political infighting and national growing pains to become revered as the greatest leader – if not the greatest president – in our nation’s history.

While Dr. Smith carefully analyzes the events of the day, he highlights how this larger than life figure set the precedents for national leadership embraced by leaders today. George Washington is not only the father of his country, but the father of the presidency.

Washington’s prestige as the general who led the Continental Army to victory over the British in the American Revolution was not enough to exempt him from the slings and arrows of politics and the divisiveness of an emerging political party system. While Washington was a nominal Federalist, he declared allegiance to no party and decried the development of political factions within the nascent American federal government.

That divisiveness eroded Washington’s popularity while he was in office. His relations with Congress were often contentious. His executive actions often led to bitter anger and hatred with regional factions. His popularity – so immense it got him elected president nearly by acclamation – plunged through the years of his presidency.

Patriarch does not delve too deeply into Washington’s early life or military career except to set the context of Washington’s presidency.

Smith does a superb job of showing us Washington's human frailties (A harsh temper and an overly aristocratic and detached manner) while not diminishing the character of this powerful figure from American history. Washington, not born into wealth, property, or nobility, was nonetheless one of the most regal figures of his day, far surpassing the cold and detached John Adams whose reputation continues to suffer today for it.

Smith deftly demonstrates the leadership Washington's leadership ability in the bitter feud between Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. Both vied for the upper hand with the president; neither got it. But Washington relied on both heavily and managed to extract the best that each man had to offer.

Washington defined much of the presidency as we know it today. He set the precedents and practices that today clearly define the separation of powers. Today, presidents remain aloof of Congress – appearing on Capitol Hill only to deliver the State of the Union (a constitutionally mandated message Washington chose to deliver in writing). He reserved the right to discharge members of his cabinet (the point of contention that led the impeachment of Andrew Johnson) while observing the senate’s role of advise and consent in their hiring.

He proposed little in the way of legislation and seldom meddled in the deliberations of Congress – a practice that has ebbed and flowed with the various personalities to inhabit the executive mansion. In the mind of Washington, it was the role of Congress to develop policy and the role of the president to reject it or ratify it and enforce it as law.

He established American legitimacy in foreign relations while straddling the constant friction between anglophiles and Francophiles within Congress and his own administration. He kept the bloody French Revolution at arms length of American diplomacy while diplomatically not decrying its brutality. Without fear of reprisal or regret, he openly Edmond Charles Genet, a French ambassador who worked hard to stir anti-British and anti-Washington fervor to gain American aid for French revolutionaries.

Smith is clearly and admirer of George Washington. It’s difficult if not impossible to find an historian who is not. It’s hard to be critical of any person’s actions or conduct when those actions and conduct have no historical precedent.

The republic that was the United States when George Washington took office in 1789 was a brand new concept in governance – governance by the consent of the governed. It would have been easy for Washington or those acting in his name to usurp the power of the presidency and create a monarchy – if not in title, in practice. It was Washington’s stature as a man and leader as well as the practices and precedents he established that has allowed the American presidency to endure as an institution despite successors who were less than worthy of its title and power.

Richard Norton Smith is the director of the Robert J. Dole Institute for Public Policy at the University of Kansas. Prior to that, he served as curator of the Gerald R. Ford Library at the University of Michigan, and curator of the Herbert Hoover Library.

It was my pleasure to have dinner and enjoy a lecture Dr. Smith conducted at the Rutherford B. Hayes Library when I worked for Sen. Mike DeWine. I sat at a table with Smith, Dr. Roger Bridges who was the curator of the Rutherford B. Hayes Library and Birthplace Museum, and the President Emeritus of Kenyon College (whose name eludes me now) at dinner and got the rare privilege of listening to three distinguished presidential scholars discuss over drinks some of my favorite historical topics. It ranks as one of my most treasured professional events.

Patriarch may not be the most thorough examination of Washington's life, but it is meticulous examination of the man's presidency and character.

Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Devil in the White City
by Erik Larson

About fifteen years ago, I went through a phase when I immersed myself in true crime and serial killer books. My favorite was The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule where she recounted the many nights she sat with the notorious Ted Bundy working a suicide hotline in Seattle. I read as much Joseph Wambaugh as I could find as well as more obscure authors who wrote about more obscure crimes.

This book would rank third on my list of true crime novels just below the aforementioned Rule book and Vincent Bugliosi's riveting account of the Tate-LaBianca murders and the prosecution of Charles Manson in Helter Skelter.

The book recounts the carnage unleashed by America's first documented serial killer, Dr. H.H. Holmes of Chicago. Dr. Holmes killed dozens of young women, a couple of men, and at least three children during his rampage that seemingly started with commencement of the 1893 Worlds Fair in Chicago.

The book tells two parallel stories. The first is about the trials and tribulations of the architect responsible for constructing the Worlds Fair grounds in Jackson Park on the shores of Lake Michigan. The other story is about the evolution of Dr. Holmes from a pathological defrauder of insurance companies into a full-fledged serial killer. Also thrown in for fun is the delusional thoughts and falsified grandeur of the young man who would go on to assassinate the mayor of Chicago because he had not received a patronage job he felt he deserved. This story line, sprinkled in every so often through the pages of this story reminds one very much of the deranged Charles Giteau who would slay President Garfield.

Holmes constructed a hotel at Wallace and 63rd streets near the site of the soon to be opened Worlds Fair to serve tourists. In that hotel, he constructed a chamber of horrors so efficient that it would be admirable in its design if its intent were not so ghastly. After Holmes' deeds were revealed, it was dubbed, "The Murder Castle." Holmes constructed a gas chamber (gassing his victims in a sealed vault was Holmes favorite method of execution) in his office. From his office, he would send the corpses of his victims careening down a methodically devised shoot to the basement where he would skin and disembowel the corpses. Sometimes he took the time to completely clean his victims’ skeleton and sell the them to medical schools. Sometimes he sold the cadavers to the same customers. Often, he cremated his victims in a specially designed oven in the basement.

He was able to create this Murder Castle by employing independent contractors to install separate portions of his murder/corpse disposal system. None of the contractors were aware of the other facilities that Holmes had installed. Had anyone taken the time to examine Holmes macabre architecture, his hobby would have been easily revealed.

Holmes' evil deeds went undetected in 19th century Chicago. He killed with impunity young women he employed in his drug store and hotel. Most of the women were from small Illinois and Wisconsin towns who answered advertisements Holmes placed in local newspapers. When worried family members would come looking for their lost daughters, Holmes, who was incredibly charming and disarming always had a ready story to explain their absence. The Chicago police remained unaware of Holmes deeds. Most families with lost loved ones employed private investigators who did not communicate with each other. No one realized the prolific nature of the monster within their midst.

Holmes killed at least three wives and collected on their life insurance. This was a favorite scam of Holmes to enrich himself. He and his business partner would steal fresh corpses from cemeteries and burn beyond recognition, then cash in on a life insurance policy of a person who never existed.

Like most serial killers, Holmes was not caught through his evil deeds. Remember that Ted Bundy was captured because he was a lousy driver. Charles Manson was originally arrested for vandalizing state-owned excavation equipment. Holmes was arrested more than two years after he left Chicago in Philadelphia for insurance fraud. A curious Philadelphia detective began looking into the death of Holmes’ business partner who was insured for $10,000. Through his investigation, he found that Holmes had murdered three of his partner's children while traveling through the Midwest and was in the late stages of plotting the murder of his partner's wife and her two remaining children.

Holmes eventually confessed to and was found guilty of 27 murders. Some investigators and historians have placed the death toll at more than 200 although most historians seem to doubt that Holmes was quite that prolific. When police searched his hotel, they found the remains of several victims in the crematorium as well as buried in the basement. Holmes claimed that murder came as naturally to him as poetry did to poets. He proclaimed himself the devil incarnate and as such, murder was his natural disposition.

Interestingly, many of the people associated with Holmes' arrest, incarceration, conviction, and eventual execution by hanging would fall victim to mishap, illness, or suicide. It would seem that Holmes did indeed command the powers of Hell. He asked that his body be interred in concrete so his corpse would not be stolen and defiled as he had defiled so many corpses as well as ambient beings.

This book is slow to get going. I was ready to put down this book after the first 100 pages. Much of the text in the early chapters recounts the bureaucratic trials and tribulations of attracting, designing, and constructing the 1893 Worlds Fair. Bureaucratic obstacles encountered by architects and lawyers make for dull reading. After Holmes constructs his chamber of horrors and gets into full swing, the book takes off and the last 100 pages make for intense reading.

Larson’s writing is fast paced and compelling once the reader moves beyond the first 100 pages. An author writing a non-fictional account of a bygone era must dedicate more words to developing the setting that serves as the backdrop than authors recounting contemporary events. However, 100 pages of backdrop is overkill. However, Larson’s disturbing tale of Gilded Age mass murder reminded me of why I once loved the true crime genre.