When young, inexperienced but very ambitious female reporter, Emily Strauss, blags her way into newspaper magnate Joseph Pulitzer's office, she comes away with a treacherous assignment: to discover what happened to Anna Zemeckis, one of many women who have disappeared during the 1893 World's Fair. With the support of a young man who is just venturing into the burgeoning trade of news photography, Emily soon finds herself in a race against time to save Anna's life and to bring her story back to New York before Pulitzer's tough deadline expires. Chicago is a place of dangerous contrasts. Among all the glitz and razzmatazz of the Fair itself and the spectacular wealth and influence of a new middle class elite, Emily comes face to face with rival ethnic groups, the sinister underworld of pornography and prostitution, as well as the ruthless meatpacking giants of the Union Stock Yard, who control the lives and destinies of so many of Chicago's immigrant poor.
Now writing as James Conan, William Horwood and Helen Rappaport are both established authors. William Horwood was a city and feature editor with the Daily Mail until, in 1978, he wrote the first of his now classic Duncton Chronicles which became instant international bestsellers. His wide-ranging books since include his critically acclaimed memoir The Boy with No Shoes. William has been married three times, has six children and now lives in Oxford. Helen Rappaport studied Russian at university and for many years worked as an actress in TV and films before turning to historical writing in the early 1990s. She is the author of books on Joseph Stalin, Queen Victoria and the award-winning An Encyclopedia of Women Social Reformers, as well as being a specialist in 19th-century women's history.
Title: City of Dark Hearts
Author: James Conan
ISBN: 9780099502173
Binding:
Publisher: Cornerstone
Publication Date: 2008-04-24
Number of Pages: 576
Weight: 0.3811 kg
Short chapters and tight plot invoke a cold dreak in the reader from the very beginning. * Daily Telegraph *
A rich historical thriller...Combines striking historical detail with a compelling mystery...Atmospheric * Observer *
The description of nineteenth-century Chicago is dramatic ... Excellent * Literary Review *
Gripping and atmospheric * Sunday Telegraph *
Pacy * Evening Standard *