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LOST AND GONE FOREVER
by Alex Grecian
GP Putnam's Sons, May 2016
375 pages
$27.00
ISBN: 0399176101


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

It has been a year - really and fictionally - since we last saw Walter Day and Jack the Ripper in THE HARVEST MAN. In LOST AND GONE FOREVER, the fifth book in Alex Grecian's series featuring Scotland Yard's Murder Squad, we begin with an amnesiac Day being freed by Jack. The horrors Day has endured during the past year are only hinted at, but it is clear from the beginning that Jack has tortured and toyed with Day to the point that Day's mental state has suffered deeply. How deeply and what Jack has planned next are the threads that pull this story forward, for it's much more of a "what's-going-to-happen" than a whodunit: there's never any question about the who. Jack is still at work in Victorian London, but his murderous focus has moved from women to the members of the Karstphanomen who captured and tortured him. But Scotland Yard's overworked Murder Squad has so much on its plate that both Day and Jack have been shuttled to one side. Not so for Nevil Hammersmith who has opened a detective agency dedicated solely to finding Walter, nor for Walter's wife Claire who struggles to support the family Walter left behind and cope with her own sense of loss.

Meanwhile, London itself has moved on, and perhaps no other spectacle proves this more than the new Plumm's Emporium, a magnificent department store featuring all the wonders of the modern world. Walter emerges into his new world and new life in the neighborhood near Plumm's, and Plumm's becomes the center of an artfully spun web, with threads leading Claire, Walter, and Nevil to the store while Jack, of course, tweaks and strums, sending out quivers that draw the series to its conclusion.

Grecian's research is evident in the details he provides that bring his London to life, and the visuals he creates, including an eerie scene of Claire in the fog that is particularly effective both physically and psychologically, are quite entrancing. The story he spins, too, is interesting and complicated, and he not only further develops known characters but also introduces some new, horrifically frightening ones that add to the overall mystery and fear.

That being said, there is a certain distance in this narrative that keeps even the most dramatic scenes a bit at an arm's length and robs them of some of their intensity. Grecian is following a number of characters, which keeps the reader from becoming deeply involved with any one character, and that, too, adds to the distancing and dilutes some of the emotional effect. And, while everything is fairly neatly tied up by the end, one feels a bit as though Grecian just wanted the series to be over and did what he could to end it with a couple of explanatory epilogues. But that could be an intentional, saving device. After all, how deeply into a madman's mind do we really want to go? How close to him do we really want to be? The glimpses Grecian provide are enough to be intriguing without taking us completely into madness, and by the end, we have the answers we've been looking for from the beginning of the series.

If you haven't read the other books in the series, this might not be the place to start, simply because having some prior knowledge of the characters gives a better understanding of them and of events, but the novel can stand on its own, as well. And, for fans of the series, it's nice to know that Grecian doesn't slam all doors shut at the end. There may be more to come.

§ Meredith Frazier, a writer with a background in English literature, lives in Dallas, Texas

Reviewed by Meredith Frazier, June 2016

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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