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Harold Schechter is a professor of American literature and culture and an acclaimed true crime author. In Depraved: The Definitive True Story of H.H. Holmes, Whose Grotesque Crimes Shattered Turn-of-the-Century Chicago, Schechter brings readers the tale of one of America's first serial killers. H.H. Holmes, or Herman Mudgett as he was more prosaically named by his parents, operated from a base in Chicago in the time of Jack the Ripper, but his crimes spread from Texas to Toronto and east to Philadelphia.

Holmes was the consummate con man, building a «castle» in Chicago that covered a city block, all while shafting the builders and building material suppliers. Facing financial ruin, Holmes began his career of murder with schemes reminiscent of the «Black Widow» mold of female serial killers - a bigamist and playboy, Holmes killed several wives and mistresses for their money. When that failed and he appears to have met a woman he had no intention of killing, he eventually branched out to killing others in insurance schemes. (He may have been involved in an earlier life insurance scheme as well, though whether that involved murder or merely grave robbing or whether it happened at all are unclear.) At some point, Holmes seems to have acquired a taste for murder, as he purposely chose murder, including the murder of three children, to cover his tracks even when it appears the track covering murders brought more attention than simply leaving well enough alone.

The career of Holmes lacks the titillation of the psychosexual crimes of later serial killers like Ted Bundy and his matter of fact methods are not as gruesome as the likes of Ed Gein. Perhaps the most shocking, frightening aspect of Holmes is that he fooled so many while calmly and methodically murdering first for profit alone and then for profit and sport.