Gaspard’s characters are all intelligent, human, and in many cases quirky. This book is as good as his books about magicians, and like those books his characters are people we would enjoy knowing.
The characters in this book are all Jack the Ripper experts. One is an older, retired Scotland Yard policeman, whose book is considered the definitive Jack the Ripper textbook. The other is a young woman who writes popular mysteries, who took a year off writing those books to do her own research into who Jack the Ripper really is. (Ok, not the Duke of Clarence, but just as hilarious). These two authors are called to help predict, if not identify a new Jack the Ripper copycat. While their knowledge of the original Ripper cases can predict when the next murder will happen, they cannot seem to identify the modern killer.
This is a wonderful book on many levels, but for me it is Gaspard’s characters, the modern policeman, the ancient and often wise retired Scotland Yard detective and the lady novelist whose identification of the historical Jack is hilarious even to those of us who are not Ripper experts.