
The True Story of a Serial Killer, the Great London Smog, and the Strangling of a City
by Kate Winkler Dawson
Recommended by Talia Lavin
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Recommended by 1 source and appears in History and Nonfiction.
A reallife thriller in the vein of The Devil in the White City, Kate Winkler Dawson's debut Death in the Air is a gripping, historical narrative of a serial killer, an environmental disaster, and an iconic city struggling to regain its footing. London was still recovering from the devastation of World War II when another disaster hit: for five lon...
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Why recommended
Recommended by 1 source and appears in History and Nonfiction.
People and public figures who have recommended this book.
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Talia Lavin
“The book "death in the air" by kate dawson about the london smog and also about a serial killer operating during it was INCREDIBLE (like devil and the white city its clear the author's real interest is in smog legislation, leavened with a bit of murder most foule)”
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Consider Billion Dollar Whale by Bradley Hope. Recommended by 8 sources.
“Bradley Hope stitches reporting into a cinematic account of a flamboyant 'modern Gatsby' and the billion-dollar schemes that followed. The narrative favors scene-by-scene reconstructions, interviews, and a reporter's eye for scandal, so it moves more like crime reporting than a finance textbook. Its useful part is storytelling: vivid episodes and timeline reconstruction that make complex deals feel tangible. Its limitation is repetition and transactional overload—readers seeking systematic, analytical explanations of the mechanics may find the account anecdote-heavy and unevenly paced.”
Each recommendation is collected from a public source — interviews, articles, or curated lists — and linked to its original URL. Books with many verifiable recommendations from respected people rank higher.