Ripper by Isabel Allende

Paperback:  For Amanda Martín and her friends, Ripper started off as just a game.

The Jackson women, Indiana and Amanda, have always had each other.  Though their bond is strong, mother and daughter are as different as night and day.  Indiana, a beautiful holistic healer, is a free-spirited bohemian.  Long divorced from Amanda's father, she is reluctant to settle down with either of the men who want her - Alan, the wealthy scion of one of San Francisco's elite families, and Ryan, an enigmatic, scarred former Navy SEAL.

While her mom looks for the good in people, Amanda is fascinated by the dark side of human nature - as is her father, the SFPD's deputy chief of homicide.  Brilliant and introverted, the MIT-bound high school senior Amanda is a natural-born sleuth addicted to crime novels and to Ripper, the online mystery game she plays with her beloved grandfather and friends around the world.

When security guard Ed Staton is found dead in the middle of a school gym, the murder presents a mystery that baffles the San Francisco police, not least Amanda's father, Deputy Chief Martín.  Amanda goes online, offering 'The Case of the Misplaced Baseball Bat' to her fellow sleuths as a challenge.  And so begins a most dangerous obsession.

The murders begin to mount up and the Ripper players, free from moral and legal restraints, may pursue any line of enquiry.  When Amanda's mother suddenly vanishes, the case becomes all too personal.  Could her disappearance be linked to the serial killer?  And will Amanda and her online accomplices solve the mystery before it is too late?

Ripper (2014) is "a literary banquet overflowing with morsels of Nancy Drew, mouthfuls of Agatha Cristie, a sprinkle of Barbara Cartland and dashes of James Patterson and Tom Clancy."  (Observer)

About the author:  Isabel Allende, born in Peru and raised in Chile, is a bestselling author based in California.  All her books are written in her native Spanish and have been translated into more than 35 languages and have sold more than 67 million copies.  Her works both entertain and educate readers by weaving intriguing stories with significant historical events.  Settings for her books include Chile throughout the 15th, 19th and 20th centuries, the California gold rush, the guerrilla movement of 1960s Venezuela, the Vietnam War, and the slave revolt in Haiti in the 18th century.

Allende, who has received dozens of international tributes and awards over the last 30 years, describes her fiction as “realistic literature,” rooted in her remarkable upbringing and the mystical people and events that fuelled her imagination.  Her writings are equally informed by her feminist convictions, her commitment to social justice, and the harsh political realities that shaped her destiny.

In addition to her work as a writer, Allende also devotes much of her time to human rights.  Following the death of her daughter in 1992, she established in Paula’s honour a charitable foundation dedicated to the protection and empowerment of women and children worldwide.  She says she lives with one foot in California and the other in Chile.

Rating:  5/5