The Fall of White City (Gilded Age Chicago Mysteries, #1)

To solve baffling crimes in turn-of-the-century Chicago, you only need to know a single fact. Bygone sins in the White City cast the longest shadows.

GILDED AGE CHICAGO MYSTERIES
Gilded Age Chicago is the fastest growing metropolis in America, rivaling New York as the City of the Century. This melting pot of thieves and corrupt politicians, robber barons and immigrants, is rife with scandal and social injustice. An eccentric heiress and a star reporter find themselves repeatedly drawn into the hidden world of intrigue and murder that lurks within the shadows of the White City.
Volume One - The Fall of White City
Wealthy spinster Evangeline LeClair leads a paradoxical life. By day, she fends off marriage-minded suitors. By night, she teaches English to factory workers at a social settlement in the slums. Evangeline is quite satisfied with the status quo until murder disrupts her routine. One of her students, a penniless immigrant, has been stabbed to death in Chicago's most exclusive hotel. The girl's brother, a known anarchist, is accused of the crime. Evangeline wheedles her admirer, Freddie Simpson, into helping her track down the real killer. Their list of possible suspects is long: a captain of industry, a denizen of the slums, a shady doctor who mixes his own drugs, and a teenage prostitute from a sporting house in the Levee District. The gleaming surface of the World's Fair casts many shadows, and THE FALL OF WHITE CITY exposes the darkness at its core.