cover image Ripper

Ripper

Amy Carol Reeves. Flux, $9.95 trade paper (360p) ISBN 978-0-7387-3072-1

Reeves’s debut is a chilling reimagining of London in 1888, haunted by Jack the Ripper. After Arabella Sharp’s mother dies suddenly, the 17-year-old moves from Dublin to an affluent London neighborhood where her grandmother lives. In an attempt to civilize Arabella, her grandmother makes her volunteer at White­chapel Hospital in the city’s dodgy East End. It’s hardly punishment: Arabella enjoys helping the patients, who are mostly prostitutes, but she begins to have visions of a chalice, hooded men, and gruesome murders of patients that she cannot stop in time; it’s up to Arabella to discover the killer’s ties to her family before he strikes again. Meanwhile, she develops an intense crush on one of the doctors, and a police inspector asks for her help with an investigation. Reeves offers a determined and free-thinking heroine in Arabella, and the ending suggests readers haven’t seen the last of her. Along with recent takes on Ripper lore from Maureen Johnson and Stefan Petrucha, Reeves’s story should help sustain interest in this grisly 19th-century mystery. Ages 12–up. Agent: Jessica Sinsheimer, Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency. (Apr.)