Cover image of "Peril at the Exposition," a novel about anarchists at the Chicago world's fair

Diana Framji grew up wealthy in a mansion on Bombay’s exclusive Malabar Hill, the daughter of a prominent Parsi family. Destined to wed within the confined limits of their tiny minority community, she fell in love instead with a soldier and married him. Captain James Agnihotri, late of the British Army in India, is the mixed-race son of an English father and a local woman. Now, cast out of her community, Diana has found her way to Boston with Jim, where he has joined a detective agency as an investigator. But their idyllic life together ends when the Dupree Agency dispatches Jim to Chicago to investigate the murder of one of the agency’s other investigators. He’d been looking into mysterious goings-on surrounding the Chicago world’s fair, now under construction. So begins Nev March’s gripping historical mystery, Peril at the Exposition.

An attack on the “White City” could kill thouands

The year is 1893. It’s two decades after the devastating fire that had destroyed the city. As its coming-out on the world’s stage, Chicago is hosting the World’s Columbian Exposition to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in the New World. The site is former swampland along the shore of Lake Michigan. There, a massive city-within-a-city is rising, with enormous exhibition halls constructed largely of plaster. The “White City” surrounds a huge pool dominated by a massive statue rivaling the Statue of Liberty. But, as Captain Jim discovers on his undercover assignment among the workers, anarchists—the terrorists of their day—seem to be planning an attack with explosives that could kill thousands. Unfortunately, in months on the job, he has made little progress in exposing the plot. Only when Diana defies all expectations and joins him in Chicago do the clues to the plot begin to emerge.

Peril at the Exposition (Captain Jim and Lady Diana #2) by Nev March (2022) 329 pages ★★★★☆

Photo of "the White City," the setting for the World's Columbian Exposition, the Chicago world's fair of 1893
The World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 wasn’t just a world’s fair; it was a coming-of-age celebration for Chicago. In the six months that it ran—from May to October of 1893—27 million people visited the fair, a remarkable figure considering what it took to travel in the 19th century. In the view above, we look toward the fair’s administration building from behind “the Republic” statue. That statue plays a pivotal role in this novel. Image: Wikipedia

Boldfaced names, beggars, and class conflict

Nev March has a way with historical fiction. She amply demonstrated that skill in her debut novel, Murder in Old Bombay, which was an Edgar Award finalist. Now, in Peril at the Exposition, March illuminates Gilded Age America at its aspirational best through the gleaming white facade of the Chicago world’s fair. And her tale is peppered with many of the boldfaced names of the era. Steel tycoon Henry Frick. Legendary labor leader Eugene V. Debs. Progressive Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld. And, from India, the pioneering industrialist Jamsetji Tata and spiritual leader and philosopher Swami Vivekananda. Among others.

Some make cameo appearances. Others blend into the background of this well-crafted mystery. Meanwhile, in the alleyways and tenements where the city’s poor and oppressed struggle for survival, we encounter the seething discontent that threatens to overthrow it all. As a study in class conflict and its tragic origins, Peril at the Exposition succeeds, too.

About that Parsi minority

More than a thousand years ago, practitioners of the ancient Zoroastrian religion left Persia for the shores of Gujarat in Western India to escape persecution. Called Parsis (or Parsees), they formed a tiny, tight-knit community that soon grew in wealth and influence far out of proportion to its numbers. Members of their community have distinguished themselves in industry, science, the military, sports, literature, and journalism. Today, they number fewer than 60,000 in India but include many of the nation’s wealthiest and most accomplished citizens. Of them all, however, the descendants of March’s character Jamsetji Tata, the “father of Indian industry,” are best known outside India.

About the author

Photo of Nev March, author of this novel about the Chicago world's fair of 1893
Nev March. Image: author’s website

Born in India, a Parsi like her heroine, Lady Diana, Nev March now lives with her family in New Jersey. She turned to writing and teaching after a long career as a business analyst. She teaches creative writing and movie analysis at Rutgers University’s Osher Institute. In 2024 she was the chair of the Mystery Writers of America New York Chapter.

Previously I reviewed Murder in Old Bombay (Captain Jim and Lady Diana #1)­­—A brilliant debut novel based on an unsolved murder.

Nev March based much of the background in her novel on Erik Larson’s brilliant 2003 nonfiction account, The Devil in the White City.

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