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Stalking Jack the Ripper is the first in a series by Kerri Maniscalco. This was also one of, if not the first, project released by the James Patterson Presents initiative. It is another mystery/thriller I picked up for the good ol' Halloween spirit!
Seventeen-year-old Audrey Rose Wadsworth was born a lord's daughter, with a life of wealth and privilege stretched out before her. But between the social teas and silk dress fittings, she leads a forbidden secret life.
Against her stern father's wishes and society's expectations, Audrey often slips away to her uncle's laboratory to study the gruesome practice of forensic medicine. When her work on a string of savagely killed corpses drags Audrey into the investigation of a serial murderer, her search for answers brings her close to her own sheltered world.
I really wish books would stop doing this to me. Like, they'll be enjoyable, but flawed enough I just can't give them above a 3. Can you guys be enjoyable and well executed, dang nab it?
I enjoyed the concept of Audrey Rose's character. She was a girl in old-time London performing things deemed not only masculine, but perhaps even unholy, by cutting open the dead to try to figure out why they were murdered. Her uncle was basically Ducky from NCIS and she was his Palmer. Well, half his Palmer, with the other half being Thomas Cresswell, who I will mention later.
She was a girl breaking away from society while also admitting to enjoy aspects of what is expected of a girl. That is what I enjoyed. I hate how people can only be guy-ish or girl-ish, and never somewhere in between with stuff like this, but the author tried to make Audrey Rose that. It just may have helped if so much of showing this didn't boil down to "I wasn't the kind of girl to" kind of delivery. Audrey Rose, oh, Audrey Rose. You had potential. Why did execution have to screw it up so much... I didn't hate her character because of the concept, but I also didn't love her because of the execeution.
Thomas Cresswell felt a bit... Much at times. He was definitely trying to be a YA Love Interest version of Sherlock Holmes, and I've always enjoyed the Sherlock Holmes type of characters, so I did enjoy him. And I liked that he was straight forward. But he could just toe the line of obnoxious a bit too far, and although Audrey Rose would snap at him for it, he never really felt like he learned from it, so I liked him, sure, but I didn't love him.
I've read there was a lot of creativity liberties taken with the historical aspect of this story, and it definitely made the story much more central to Audrey Rose and her life. I think that actually disappointed me going in. It wasn't what I expected. I expected a girl who was obsessed with some killer detached from her that she needed to stop. Nope... The cases are all tied to her family somehow. I can't blame the book for not being what I expected, but it did dull my enjoyment of the book.
And don't even get me started on the totally random medium that popped up to provide a clue...
The mystery of unraveling how Jack the Ripper was connected to Audrey Rose and her family's past was admittedly interesting, even if far from what I expected (and honestly still want more). I liked getting to know more and more about her Uncle and Thomas as I did like their characters, and the overall aesthetic of old England is just nice.
The writing, although sometimes weak, was easy and fun to read. That said, I do also feel like this book finds itself a lot better than it is. Probably get that feeling because Audrey Rose is nowhere near the feminist icon that I think the book was trying to make her.
Also, this book did one of my least favorite things in mystery/thrillers :) I get that there is evil hiding under good. I get that we can't see the monsters right in front of us. But it shouldn't be a finger snap and a mask slides off and suddenly "oh, psycho alert!" Sure, I figured the killer out 2/3 of the way through. Many figured who Jack was way earlier, but that's because they sadly are more familiar with meh mystery/thriller reveals than I am.
So overall, not a bad book, but the way I imagined this book in my head before I opened it is a story I would much rather read than the relatively generic YA plot that does get a few points for the historical and murder aspects.
