Doug went home to Chicago to promote his book, The Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers Who Inspired 'Chicago'. Much has changed since he moved away ten years ago: Some franchise called Argo Tea has taken over; all his favorite used bookshops are history; Frank Gehry extruded some twisted metal in Grant -- er, Millennium -- Park. But many of the key places featured in Murder City are still around; Doug checked, just to make sure...

Doug in front of After-Words Books, on East Illinois Street, with a newly signed copy of The Girls of Murder City in the window.

The old Criminal Courts Building on Hubbard Street. Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner, as well as Leopold and Loeb, were tried for murder here in the summer of 1924. Maurine Watkins covered all of them for the Chicago Tribune. Below: the building's lobby.

The Tribune Tower was under construction in 1924. At left: Looking up from the 15th-floor employees' patio. At right, the tower's entrance.

Hearst's "Madhouse on Madison" at Market (now Wacker) is long gone. But a block away, across the river and opposite the back of the Civic Opera House, still stands the Chicago Daily News Building, completed in 1928. Below: Bas-reliefs on the plaza side of the building celebrate "Men of Print," including former Chicago mayor and Chicago Tribune owner Joseph Medill.

Chicago at night: The sparkling new Trump Tower (site of the old Sun-Times Building) is on the left; it's the second-tallest building in the city. The neo-classical Wrigley Building is in the center, with the Tribune Tower peeking out from behind it.

North Dearborn Street, south of North Avenue, offers a nearly pristine stretch of beautiful late 19th-century and early 20th-century brownstones. One of the exceptions: The bland postwar monstrosity at 1425 N. Dearborn, above left, which replaced the building in which Maurine Watkins lived during her time in Chicago. The elegant building next door (right), however, was around during Maurine's time.

Beulah Annan's attorneys, William Scott Stewart and W.W. O' Brien, were no angels, but they saw them every day -- at least they did after moving their offices to the swank new Temple Building, on West Washington Street, in 1925. Below: the lobby's ceiling.

Another view of the Temple Building, Chicago's tallest when Stewart and O'Brien were in residence. At right, an elevator in the lobby.

The Harold Washington Library at State Street and Congress Parkway. At right, Doug doing his shtick at the library.

Doug, flipping through The Believer while his fellow patrons ignore his book at the Water Tower Borders. Not sure Mike Royko's Boss should be in the "Murder & Mayhem" section, unless it's a reference to what Royko did to the original Mayor Daley's reputation.

Photographs copyright Deborah King. Please do not take them without asking.