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The Name Of The Star by Maureen Johnson

Sixteen-year-old American Rory has just arrived at boarding school in London when a Jack the Ripper copycat killer begins terrorising the city. All the hallmarks of his infamous murders are frighteningly present, but there are few clues to the killer's identity.

'Rippermania' grabs hold of modern day London and the police are stumped, especially with no witnesses, except one. In an unknown city with few friends to turn to, Rory makes a chilling discovery. Could the copycat murderer really be Jack the Ripper back from the grave?

On the surface, this storyline might seem to resemble the plot of 'Whitechapel' or a particular episode of 'Goodnight Sweetheart'. Indeed Jack The Ripper seems to be popular subject matter in some quarters at present. One twist though is that Rory is a schoolgirl, and another is that the crimes are not being replicated exactly. At the start, Rory is a bystander watching events unfold, like everyone else in London, although the proximity of the boarding school to Whitechapel means she and her friends have a prime seat.

It is this prime seat, and the vantage point of the boy's dormitory roof that gets her more deeply involved in the case than she would like though, as after going there with friends to see if they could witness a murder, she goes back to her own dormitory with her friend Jezza. While Jezza sneaks inside, Rory meets a strange man, but it isn't until the next day that they learn a murder has taken place in the school grounds, the Ripper has struck again.

Rory is left with some puzzling questions though. Who was the strange man? Was he connected to the murder? And why didn't Jezza see or hear him?

All this makes for a compelling read and good mystery.

RRP $24.99
Published anddistributed by HarperCollins Publishers
 

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