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Yo, El Destripador (2014)

by Alex Scarrow(Favorite Author)

3.95 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

607735032X (ISBN13: 9786077350323)

languge

English

genre

Horror

publisher

Editorial Oceano de Mexico

review 1: The book starts on the Titanic, shortly after it's encounter with the iceberg. An elderly man and a disabled woman seem to have read the writing on the wall, ie they are not going to make it and get to chatting. Their conversation leads to him saying that he knew something about Jack the Ripper. Back we go to the late 1900's, and straight into something fairly nasty - the murder of a young mother and her baby with not much left to the imagination of the reader. The murderer spots a photo of the victims, along with someone he knows from somewhere but can't remember where and pockets the photo just in case it could be of value in future. The people who have organised the murder, which is to protect the man in the picture from scandal, need to retrieve the picture from ... morethis ne'er do well, and seek the services of a professional killer - the...wait for it..........Candle Man. He has to schlep over from the USA, and on his arrival there are some familiar, but well written I thought, bits where he is assigned the task. At the same time we are told the story of Mary, a woman who has fallen on hard times, and is employed in the, er, oldest profession. She happens upon a gentleman who is in a bad way, either by being beaten up or hit by a tram or something and takes the opportunity to nick his bag which is full of money. Perhaps it is too trite to describe her as 'a tart with a heart' but she gets a pang of conscience, and goes along to the hospital to check on the chap she found. He has totally lost his memory, and Mary sees an opportunity to either look after him and start a new life for herself and him or pinch even more money - and pretends to be his other half. She blags her way into an unoccupied house where she used to work, and sets up home with her pretend husband. Meanwhile the Candle Man has made short work of the man who pocketed the photo, but the picture has been handed for safe keeping with two other ladies of the night - alert readers will recognise the names of these women as real victims of the real Jack the Ripper. Because of who is in the photo, the shadowy people who organised the first killer, and the second killer to deal with the first killer can't leave any witnesses to what has happened. I enjoyed this book, despite the sometimes rather gratuitous blood and gore and would recommend it to anyone who likes a good read, and doesn't get too upset when history is teaked just a bit now and again.
review 2: I first encountered Alex Scarrow's excellent body of work two years ago. His titles are highly recommended, and I was pleased to discover his latest thriller, The Candle Man (Orion). I really tried to enjoy this book because I loved the writer's previous work and the novel offers so much to the Ripperologist in me.The narrative begins promisingly on RMS Titanic, just after her rendezvous with the iceberg, then transports us to London's 'Autumn of Terror' in 1888.And I really wanted Scarrow to proffer his own, original approach - unfortunately we are presented with yet another re-hash of the 'Royal conspiracy'.This criticism is not detrimental to the novel however, which is as evocative as any worthy piece of Victoriana, and one of the author's many strengths lies in his (almost Holmesian) attention to period detail. I suspect that Scarrow - like many other writers since the 1970's - relishes in an admittedly compulsive and entertaining theory. Also akin to other proponents of this particular 'final solution', this novelist allows the final canonical victim, Mary Kelly, to escape her true destiny too.Granted, this is a fictional account of the Whitechapel Murders and the historical minutiae is as accurate as you'd expect from Scarrow, but it's hard to forgive his most glaring error - the 'Double Event' occurs here two days later than documented (and I'm sure that the cover artwork depicts the Lusitania, not Titanic).The story ends back onboard the sinking liner, and the mystery of Jack the Ripper is solved. Despite my negative opinions, The Candle Man remains a good read, and I look forward to Alex Scarrow's next title. less

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