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Since August of 1888, when the body of Martha Tabram was found in the dismal streets of London’s Whitechapel district stabbed to death thirty-nine times, the identity of history’s most infamous serial killer has fired the imaginations of professional investigators, writers, and the public at large. Over the course of three months the killer who came to be known as Jack the Ripper would terrify the citizens of London, taunt the press and police with letters and grisly souvenirs from his crimes, and take the lives of six unfortunates (the polite Victorian term for prostitutes) in vicious nighttime attacks. To this day the crimes remain unsolved.
But in Lyndsay Faye’s fantastic debut novel Dust and Shadow, Jack the Ripper finally meets his match in the form of the world’s foremost detective, Sherlock Holmes. Consulted by a desperate police force, Holmes – along with his trusted biographer Dr. John Watson – is as shocked by the unprecedented brutality of the crimes as the rest of London. But with the aid of his steely resolve, uncommonly keen powers of observation, and cunning intelligence – as well as the help of an intrepid unfortunate named Mary Ann Monk, who serves as the detective’s Whitechapel informant – Holmes tracks the brazen killer through the foggy, gas lit streets to a thrilling denouement. With appearances by familiar names like Mycroft Holmes and Inspector Lestrade, and plenty of twists and turns in the plot, the well-written and meticulously researched Dust and Shadow is sure to please fans of Sherlock Holmes, Jack the Ripper scholars, and mystery lovers alike.