Get Lost in the 1893 World’s Fair with Red Jameson!

Or, how America’s first serial killer inspired my writing…

My Glimpse Time Travel Series is a unique spin on the time travel genre. Instead of just skipping back in time to one location, one era, I have two mischievous muses who bring couples together in different lands and in different periods. Why would I do something like that? Well, I’m an historian, so, of course, I would find a way to jump through diverse times and write about it. I love doing the research for every single one of my books, one set in America during the War for Independence to another set in the Highlands of Scotland during the time when Oliver Cromwell had taken over the monarchy, etc. However, what I’ve never shared before was that my latest release, Duchess of Mine, Book 4 of the Glimpse Series, was written years ago, before I’d even envisioned the muses flinging couples around.  

See, about a decade ago, I found the author, Erik Larson. I have such a crush on this man’s writing! He writes historical books that I can’t put down, and the first book I read by him was The Devil in the White City: A Saga of Magic and Murder at the Fair that Changed America.  In a nutshell, The Devil in the White City is about America’s first, well-known serial killer, Dr. H. H. Holmes and the World’s Columbian Exhibition of 1893, or simply called the Fair.

Already the globe was atwitter with Jack the Ripper (1888-ish), but in 1893 Dr. Holmes built a labyrinth of a hotel outside of Chicago where he ushered in then killed anywhere between 27 to 200 victims.

So maybe it’s time to share more about the World Fair. It was the pentacle of American success in the 19^th century. It showed how the once isolated (although, some historians would argue that we still carried on with the tradition of isolation until WWII) country had blossomed into a global contender who could rival even the likes of Britain. The Ferris Wheel was on display—the first ever built; modern skyscraper architecture held audiences captivated; there were peoples from all over the world representing their cultures; as well as Buffalo Bill made appearances, Susan B. Anthony, and even Thomas Edison was there. Hence, the World Fair of 1893 in Chicago drew in a big crowd. And there was Holmes, ready and waiting for the people with his charismatic charm and low hotel rates. 

Holmes had built the hotel through a scheme of credit frauds, and the contractors and builders who were owed thousands of dollars, by the end of the Fair, wanted to make good on that debt one way or another. No one knows how, but Holmes escaped the contractors and their death threats. But the contractors, in turn, hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency—the eye that never sleeps—to track down Holmes. It will never be understood why, but Holmes, while living on the lam, took three children with him. The children’s father was an accomplice of Holmes’s who had helped with life insurance frauds from time to time and died as a consequence of one such scheme.

For three months, Holmes had the children with him in the winter of 1893 – 1894. Then the children vanished before Holmes was arrested. A year and-a-half later one of America’s least known but most heroic detectives, Frank Geyer, tried to track down the last known whereabouts of those little children.

The Ferris Wheel at the Fair

The story of the children and of Detective Geyer captivated me. And I started to wonder about the detective being followed himself—followed by two characters who wanted to help him solve a mystery, help him because the detective was enduring overwhelming personal grief (he’d just lost his wife and daughter to a house fire) while a nation watched him do his job. Talk about pressure. So, I started writing about a couple who wanted to help Frank Geyer during the now infamous case of his. I’d written feverishly for a little over a month, finished the book, and, at that time, thought I’d have it buried under my bed until the end of time. 

  

However, that story never left me but haunted me, until, at last, after I’d created the Glimpse Series, I could finally dust that story off, rewrite a few things, and see if others liked Duchess of Mine, where a couple tried their hardest to help a tired and sad detective find three missing children. It was my way of rewriting history.

Now, I’m curious: if you could rewrite an historical event, what would it be? 

Note from Regan: Be sure to leave your email when you comment as Red is giving away a copy of Duchess of Mine to one lucky winner! 

Red Jameson is a military historian by day, sometimes she feels a bit clandestine when she writes romance at night. No one knows that while she researches heroes of the past and present, she uses everything for her characters in her books. Her secret has been safe... until now. She lives in Montana with her family and far too many animals.

You can find Red at her Website, her Blog and on Facebook. And you can buy Duchess of Mine at Amazon, B&N and iBooks.