It was so easy to disappear, so easy to deny knowledge, so very easy in the smoke and din to mask that something dark had taken root. This was Chicago, on the eve of the greatest fair in history.

His weakness was his belief that evil had boundaries.

Whenever I finish a book, I start with a blank slate and never have ideas lined up.

. . . why some men choose to fill their brief allotment of time engaging the impossible, others in the manufacture of sorrow.

I don't listen to music when I write, but I do turn on appropriate music when I read portions of my manuscripts back to myself - kind of like adding a soundtrack to help shape mood.

Chicago has disappointed her enemies and astonished the world

Place has always been important to me, and one thing today's Chicago exudes, as it did in 1893, is a sense of place. I fell in love with the city, the people I encountered, and above all the lake and its moods, which shift so readily from season to season, day to day, even hour to hour.