A thoroughly engrossing story that elegantly blends history and fiction.
Sherlock Holmes investigates the murders of Jack the Ripper in this detective novel.
“Five. Fifteen more and then I give myself up.” So reads a letter to the police from the self-christened Jack the Ripper in 1888, and the local police call upon famed detective Holmes to aid in the investigation of five ghastly murders of women in the Whitechapel area of London. The case takes a psychological toll on Holmes, who narrates this tale, as inept police officers routinely bungle the collection of important evidence, and his partner, Dr. John H. Watson, is newly married, which alters the dynamic of their own relationship. When Holmes inspects a second letter from the Ripper, the detective realizes that the killer is referencing one of his past cases. This revelation, paired with the recently suspicious actions of Watson, leads Holmes to a highly disturbing thought: Could his friend and business partner have something to do with the heinous murders? In her newest novel, Wiseman, the author of The Kithseeker(2018), offers a compelling story that combines the gruesome history of the Ripper and his crimes with the logic and intellect of the consulting detective of Baker Street. The mystery is well paced, picking up delightfully during crucial moments of the investigation, as when townsfolk cry, “Murder! Police!” at the conclusion of one chapter or when Holmes later declares, “Seven. And thirteen more. I must move fast.” Wiseman’s language is reminiscent of that in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic stories and fully places the reader in the seedy surroundings of Whitechapel in the Victorian era. Similarly, the experience of dissecting the case alongside the brilliant sleuth—who, as one character notes, can see “what is darkness to the rest of us”—remains a pleasure even as appropriately grisly details of the murders are revealed. It will be an absorbing read for Sherlock-ians and fans of true crime, and it will keep readers on their toes throughout.
A thoroughly engrossing story that elegantly blends history and fiction.Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73446-410-8
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Sharply drawn characters, a “locked-room” location, and a tension-filled WWII setting illuminate this wartime thriller.
During World War II, a female police officer investigates a spate of murders on a tiny island off the coast of Massachusetts.
Oren’s novel opens arrestingly with a local police captain discovering a fisherman’s unexpected catch of a human body. Then, an initial assessment of death by drowning goes distinctly south when it turns out that the man was strangled. Things only get trickier from there since it’s wartime, 1944, and the corpse is that of a prisoner of war: The island, along with its docks, trawlers, and cranberry bogs, includes a prison camp of Italian POWs and a U.S. military emplacement headed by a lieutenant who’d prefer to be on the front lines (his wealthy family ensures that he’s not). To complicate matters further—especially when another murder victim emerges—the police captain is Mary Beth Swann, who took over her husband’s law enforcement role when he shipped out to the South Pacific. Being a female police officer was already challenging enough; Mary Beth, originally from Boston, also has to tolerate the disrespect of the island’s inhabitants. What elevates this intriguing story—comparisons with television’s always engaging Foyle’s War are inevitable—are the wonderfully delineated specifics of the location and characters. This island may be fictional, but it’s drawn directly from the author’s experiences on Nantucket, and each of the characters sparkles with their own vitality, including the town’s brothel madam, the Acadian short-order cook missing two fingers, a visiting gangster, and the nearly 90 Italians waiting out the war in a remote corner of a foreign land.
Sharply drawn characters, a “locked-room” location, and a tension-filled WWII setting illuminate this wartime thriller.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-950539-60-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dzanc
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
Armstrong’s new twist on her Rockton franchise scores higher as wilderness adventure than as mystery.
The idealistic attempt to carve a new town out of the Yukon snow runs into criminal complications that threaten to reduce the tiny population to zero.
Det. Casey Butler has every reason to be deeply invested in Haven’s Rock. She and her husband, Rockton Sheriff Eric Dalton, have financed the new settlement, breaking away from the marginally more established refuge of Rockton, with money Casey inherited. Her eventful history with Rockton makes her eager for the new town, whose every resident will be hand-picked by Dalton and her, to succeed. So she’s alarmed to learn that three of those residents ignored the place’s paramount rule—don’t go into the forest—and only one of them returned. Yolanda the contractor, last spotted walking into the woods with Bruno the engineer, is back safe and sound, but finding Bruno will become the top priority of Casey and Dalton and their canine and human cohort. Soon after he’s rescued, Bruno goes AWOL from his hospital bed without more than hinting at what happened in the forest, and this time he turns up dead. Even worse, Penny, the architect who followed Yolanda and Bruno when she first saw them walking away from the town in progress, remains missing, presumed dead—until Casey and Dalton find a dead woman who turns out to be Denise, the second wife of Mark, a prospective resident who’s on a secret mission of his own. Few readers will be able to name any of the suspects an hour after putting this spinoff down, but they’ll still be shivering with cold.
Armstrong’s new twist on her Rockton franchise scores higher as wilderness adventure than as mystery.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2023
ISBN: 9781250865410
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
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