November 15, 2016
An intrepid female photographer tracks the serial killer of the (19th) century. London, 1888. Narrator Sarah Bain makes a modest living as a photographer on Commercial Street. A substantial part of her income derives from arty, but socially unacceptable, pictures of prostitutes. Although she's a virgin, Sarah has a special affinity for these women and their forbidden lives. When two of her subjects are found brutally murdered in similar fashion over just a few weeks, Sarah sets out fearfully to determine whether they were victims of the same killer. Worried about the safety of her other models, she sets out to warn them. All the girls disregard her warnings, and the Ripper claims another victim, Annie Chapman, known as "Dark Annie." Meanwhile, the presence of a refined lady in the Tenderloin attracts notice, and Sarah gains the dogged and unwanted attention of several Whitechapel policemen, led by the courtly PC Barrett. Sarah convinces stunning Catherine Price, a protegee and subject of Sarah's who's come perilously close to prostitution, to help her find the killer. Also lending assistance are Catherine's beau, Lord Hugh Staunton; the Lipskys, a compassionate immigrant couple often persecuted because of their Jewish heritage; and Mick, an adventurous street urchin. Close calls, a surprise ending, and the suggestion of further adventures follow. Rowland, author of the long-running Sano Ichiro mystery series (The Iris Fan, 2014, etc.), has assembled an appealingly ragtag collection of amateur sleuths and keeps suspense high.
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Starred review from January 1, 2017
Taking a break from her long-running "Sano Ichiro" series set in 1600s Japan, Rowland fast-forwards to Victorian England at the start of Jack the Ripper's reign of terror. Self-sufficient Sarah Bain keeps herself gainfully employed as a photographer, supplementing her socially acceptable income with a little something extra: racy bedroom shots of women who work the streets of London's Whitechapel district. As several of her clients fall prey to the Ripper, Sarah becomes convinced that there's a madman on the loose. To help in her investigation, she enlists one of her proteges, an immigrant couple, and a street urchin, a character so ubiquitous in Victorian-set crime fiction that Rowland's would garner an automatic eye roll if Mick weren't so charming. Sarah's actions attract the attention of both the police and shadowy Jack himself, who is hellbent on silencing the woman who could uncover his identity. VERDICT The whopper of all serial killers, Jack the Ripper, like fire, is to be handled with care, and luckily Rowland knows just how to do it, putting a new twist on old tropes with her witty sleuth, while never sacrificing historical integrity.
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Starred review from November 15, 2016
Rowland, author of the Sano Ichiro historical-mystery series, jumps forward in time to the late nineteenth century and shifts her setting from feudal Japan to Victorian England. This excellent novel features a photographer, Sarah Bain, who discovers that prostitutes who have recently modeled for illicit photos are being murdered, apparently by the mysterious killer known only as the Ripper. Determined to keep more women from dying, Sarah risks her own life to find out the true identity of the killer. There are so many fine things about this novel that it's difficult to enumerate them all. The characters are beautifully drawn; the dialogue sparkles (like the dialogue in the Ichiro novels, it feels period-appropriate without seeming stilted); the setting is vividly rendered. Perhaps best of all, the novel does what many other Ripper-themed thrillers haven't done: it answers some key questions about the Ripper mystery, such as whether the victims were truly random and how the police could have had such a hard time finding even one viable suspect. This is sure to delight followers of Ripper-themed fiction and all who cherish Victorian-era mysteries.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)