Leonardo DiCaprio will play a real-life 19th Century serial killer in an upcoming adaptation of Erik Larson‘s book, The Devil in the White City.

Here’s more from the release: “[T]he film follows both the planning and execution of the mass murders, which take place during the city’s most profound moment on the world’s stage.In the film, DiCaprio plays the murder-minded H.H. Holmes, a cavalier charlatan who takes advantage of somewhere between 27 and 200 people, mostly single young women, to develop a lucrative personal cadaver-disposal system.”

Deadline Hollywood has more about the deal, including some back-story about Tom Cruise‘s attempt to mount a production of the book. Although best known for this book, Larson is also the author of a number of nonfiction books, including Lethal Passage: The Story of a Gun, Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History, and Thunderstruck.