It pains me to say it, as I’ve really enjoyed other books in this series and other books by this author, but I was disappointed with this book.  It’s like it never really committed to deciding what it was meant to be about.  It’s a little about labor unrest of the time, a little about attitudes towards the mentally handicapped, a little about the rights of women and animals, and a little about the great Chicago fire.  It’s got good characters and I started out enjoying it, but it never seemed to develop any kind of focus or purpose; it just sort of rambled on for a bit, and then there was an epilogue tacked on the end to wrap up the loose ends, but there was never any kind of actual conclusion.