Monday, January 9, 2017

The Ripper's Shadow: A Victorian Mystery, by Laura Joh Rowland

Laura Joh Rowland skillfully weaves facts with fiction in her convincing take on the Jack the Ripper murders. As her tale unfolds, she also demonstrates that the 21st century holds no monopoly on vicious killers or on odd-sock families created not by blood but by warm friendship.

Sarah Bain is thirty-something and unmarried, which in the London of 1888, means she is considered a spinster. After her father died, Sarah kept his photography business going in the heart of the East End of London. Photography has become both her profession and her life, and her views of the world are often through the lens of her camera.

Running a business in Victorian times was extraordinarily difficult for a single woman, and even more difficult for Sarah because her late mother convinced her that everyone will betray her. Friendless, with no family, and desperately needing funds to stay in business, Sarah agrees to a plan proposed by local prostitutes to photograph them in various states of undress and then split the profits from the sale of the photos. To Sarah's surprise, these ladies slowly befriend her. When Sarah discovers that two of the victims of a brutal murderer, labeled "the Ripper," are her ladies, she desperately sets out to uncover the murderer and save her remaining friends.

Along the way, Sarah casts off the lonely paranoia instilled by her dead mother as she is befriended by the Lipskys, Russian Jewish immigrants grieving for a lost child, Hugh, an aristocrat who relies on Sarah to keep his sexual orientation secret, Mick, a young, street-wise boy with no home or parents, and Catherine, one of her photography models who is surprisingly naive. Together this odd crew forms an equally odd family as they seek the murderer.

The premise of "The Ripper's Shadow" is fascinating: a female photographer in late Victoria London on the trail of the most famous serial killer in history. It is the iconoclastic characters, however, and their interactions with each other, that sets this novel apart from other Victorian era mysteries.

(In return for an honest review, I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.)
Print Length: 368 pages
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books (January 10, 2017)
Publication Date: January 10, 2017
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC