What Alice Knew: A Most Curious Tale of Henry James and Jack the Ripper

Cohen (Jane Austen in Scarsdale) pits novelist Henry James; his philosopher brother, William; and their sister, Alice, against Jack the Ripper in another fictional depiction of the Ripper case. With 1888 London in an uproar over the sadistic murders, Scotland Yard summons William from Harvard in the hope that his insights into the human mind will succeed where their efforts have failed. The three siblings, who soon conclude that the butchery is not the work of a skilled medical hand, decide to focus on the artistic community after Alice observes that the mutilations resemble a painter's brushstrokes. Other real-life characters, like Oscar Wilde and Ellen Terry, lend a hand in the investigation. While the solution to the question of the Ripper's identity is less than satisfying and the killer's motivation underdeveloped, the author does a good job of evoking the grimness of everyday life in the Whitechapel slums. (Sept.)