A slow starter but finally hit its stride...and became an interesting book, especially towards the end with the development of a new theory about Jack the Ripper. I'd like to see another book with the James siblings in it. The atmosphere of the day was captured well with the language and mannerisms of the characters. A decent read. ( )

This is different - Cohen tackles Jack the Ripper, through the sleuthing of the James siblings (Henry , William, and Alice). The book blurb, cover, and title were a bit misleading. Neither Alice nor Henry play as large a role in the story as William does, and the story isn't nearly as menacing as the cover would have the reader think.

I appreciated that Cohen's plot is grounded in the historical speculation of who Jack the Ripper was, without having the big reveal fall into any of the camps.

I less appreciated the feeling after awhile that this was more or less literary wank for Cohen, who seemed to shoehorn in some famous authors (most notably the very out of place Samuel Clemens) and an entirely tangential subplot involving Jewish culture and society at the time. ( )

A unique presentation of the typical Jack the Ripper story. Scotland Yard summons psychologist William James to cross the ocean to help with the case. In London he meets up with his brother, the novelist Henry James, and their invalid sister Alice. The three then put their heads together in order to solve the case. Of course, Alice comes up with the answer, one subtle and difficult to prove the still believable. An interesting book and one that is as much about the dynamic between siblings with very different personalities as it is about the crime. ( )

Despite both the title and the cover copy (the blurb on this site is much better), Alice is not the main character. She shares that honor equally with her two brothers, William and Henry James. What William, Alice, and Henry combined knew eventually adds up to a solution to Jack the Ripper's identity. (I don't know enough about current scholarship to know if this solution holds actual water, but it hangs together well enough for the purposes of the narrative.)

Unfortunately, there are hurdles for the reader in reaching that solution, not just for the characters, starting with Henry's introduction. When readers first meet him, he has overindulged in a couple ways at a dinner party and is unable to comprehend much of what is going on around him. So he decides to walk home, naturally gets lost, and then loses control of multiple bodily functions. Ew and ugh. This is decidedly not my favorite way to introduce a character ever, and it made it very difficult to relate to him in later chapters, because I just kept thinking about -- well, I'll leave it at 'ew.'

But I had borrowed this book from a friend to whom I'd mentioned that it looked interesting, so I kept going. Then I met Alice, the convalescent woman who would solve the mystery! Only.... her convalescence is portrayed as more the result of personality quirk than physical affliction and possibly even a weakness of character. Even Alice herself acknowledged that keeping to her bed was in part affectation - though the headaches seemed real enough. So while the cover hinted at a capable yet disabled character, I'm not sure that's what the text provided (there may be an argument to be made that she had a real albeit undiagnosed psychological disorder -- however, one might expect her brother William, an early psychologist, to suggest the possibility). Also, I just plain didn't like Alice very much for the first half of the book. My opinion started to change when she started having people other than her brothers and Katherine to interact with, particularly Jane. I liked Jane.

Which brings me to William, the brother who was still living in America. (Both Alice and Henry had moved to London well before the novel begins.) William was invited to assist in the Jack the Ripper investigation -- and the other Jameses invited themselves along for the ride. William has an odd interlude of exoticising/eroticising a young Jewish woman whom he met during his investigation which I found uncomfortable to read but understandable, I suppose, for a man of his time even if he is being written in the modern day. Speaking of uncomfortable, that brings me to the weird push-pull between Anglophilia and American Exceptionalism that ran throughout the book. I think that tension was most pronounced in William's chapters -- I am hoping so, because as a character trait it's slightly interesting, because then that makes it intentional.

I did enjoy the revelation, climax, and epilogue. But I found too much of the book wordy* and uninteresting** to recommend.


* William's visit to one of the Ripper's crime scenes includes paragraphs of reverie on the mind's inability/unwillingness to accept the horror of what the eyes see. (The squeamish will probably appreciate the relative paucity of descriptions for the other senses in the scene.)

** Dinner parties, interesting. Dinner party planning (with discussion of characters the readers don't know and won't really get to know), uninteresting. ( )

Very entertaining story involving the James siblings and a wide assortment of art and literati of the period. Almost everyone has a theory about Jack the Ripper...this was no more compelling than any other but I truly enjoyed the interaction between Henry, William, and Alice James. ( )