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Capturing the Devil



By Kate A

     Capturing the Devil by Kerri Maniscalco is the last book in the four-book Stalking Jack the Ripper series. I wrote a review of the third book in the series, Escaping from Houdini, in the beginning of September before this book came out, but I haven't been able to read it until recently.
     This book is about a forensic scientist named Audrey Rose Wadsworth, who works with her uncle and his apprentice, Thomas Cresswell, who is also Audrey's fiancee. The book takes place in January and February of 1889, and it begins right after Audrey, her uncle, and Thomas arrived in New York City on a ship that sailed from London. Audrey and Thomas plan to get married while they are in New York, but their wedding was crashed by a woman named Ms. Whitehall, who claims to be betrothed to Thomas. They later found out that Thomas's father had arranged for him to marry Ms. Whitehall without either Audrey or Thomas knowing. Meanwhile, Audrey and Thomas find evidence that a serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, who they hunted in previous books and thought dead, is still alive and is in Chicago. So the three forensic scientists decide to go to Chicago to find Jack the Ripper and escape Thomas's father, who is threatening to bring Thomas to London to marry Ms. Whitehall. The rest of the book is about their search for Jack the Ripper and their attempts to find a way to marry each other without repercussions from Thomas's family.
     Overall, I thought this book was really good, but one complaint I have is that it took too long for the exciting parts of the book to start. The book didn't have a lot of action or suspense until they went to Chicago, and although there was a little bit about murder and forensics in the beginning of the book, the first half was mostly about their wedding drama. I still found the wedding drama exciting, but I prefer more mystery and suspense than romance and drama. Personally, I liked the first books in the series better than this one because they had more action and horror, but I enjoyed reading all of them, and for the most part, I think they had a pretty good balance between romance and mystery, and I would definitely recommend this series to anyone who likes murder mysteries.

Comments

  1. Elan PanApril 7, 2020 at 6:03 PM

    Hello Kate, thanks for the review! I really enjoyed your review, because it has a thorough summary of Capturing the Devil, which I found very interesting. You also included a short bit about what you didn't like about the structure of the plot, which I found useful. In my case, it doesn't really make a difference - I'll definitely check out this book because mystery and wedding drama both sound like a fun read - but to more picky readers this could make a difference. I look forward to more from you!

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  2. Lili TiouririneApril 12, 2020 at 11:17 AM

    This is a great review, I liked how you took the time to talk about all the parts of the plot. In the last paragraph I liked how you said that most of the exciting stuff takes too long to happen. I know that i've read a couple books that are like that and it can be frustrating. But honestly after the action starts to happen the book gets so much more interesting and it was worth the wait. I also read your blog post about Escaping from Houdini and I found that one interesting too. I am a person that likes book series so I might take a look at this one. Nice job!

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