Published By: Hutchinson Heinemann
Pages: 528
Released On: 15/02/2024
‘What if we decided to try and find him?’
‘What on earth are you on about?’ she said. ‘How are we going to catch the Yorkshire Ripper, when the police haven’t even managed to?’
I sighed. Her questioning my ideas was a recent and unwelcome element to our friendship. But it was a valid point. How would we catch him? We needed some sort of plan, a way of gathering clues and putting them into order.
I thought about what the policeman had said about structure, and then about Aunty Jean and her notebook, and the idea I had hardened like toffee. I knew exactly what we needed to do.
‘We’ll make a list,’ I said. ‘A list of the people and things we see that are suspicious.
And then . . . And then we’ll investigate them.’
****
Thanks to NetGalley and Hutchinson Heinemann for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
This book isn’t even out yet and all I’ve been seeing is positive early reviews, rating this as one of the best books people had read. It meant I was really keen to read it. And I’ve also got Jennie on Twitter and she seems like the most lovely lady, and I am so pleased that this – her DEBUT novel (unbelievable) – is doing so well.
I’ve had it on my Kindle for a while and had been lusting after it for ages, but for some reason, I didn’t actually know what it was about. I obviously had read the blurb at one point, but for whatever reason, it hadn’t stuck. And so I had no idea it would be centered around the search for the Yorkshire Ripper. It gives it such a powerful feeling that took my breath away.
I’ve said before that my ideal page count is about 300-400, no more than 450 maybe, and that I dislike overly long books as I never think they warrant being that long, and so the fact that this book was over 500 pages long was a bit of a worry. But I read the first 1/4 in the same time it would have taken me to read the equivalent in a shorter book. It is so thrilling and fast paced (but never rushed) that you’re drawn into and it holds your hands and holds your breath and only gives it back to you upon the last page. I read it in less than 24 hours, which was pretty impressive for me given the page length. So if you’re like me and panic at the sight of a longer book, you don’t need to with this one as the time just whizzes away.
I don’t know much about Yorkshire (except that I think it’s beautiful and I want to live there), and I know even less about Yorkshire in the 70s and 80s, and yet Jennie has created such a sense of place, even within the first few pages, that it feels like coming home. She doesn’t describe Yorkshire in the obvious way of depicting what it literally looks like. But it’s in the characters, the way they walk and talk and dress, it’s in the local establishments and community, and it’s in Jennie’s blood, and you can feel it in every line.
I may not have been around in the 70s, and yet I still remember the joy of being able to go to the local shop in the 90s and being able to buy sweets for pennies. Jennie has managed to display that sense of nostalgia beautifully, and whilst not necessarily important to the plot as a whole, it was a nice touch.
It’s got an interesting format. It’s mainly told from the viewpoint of Miv, our main protagonist, alongside her friend Sharon. But then we get chapters written from the viewpoint of the people Miv adds to her list of suspects. It gives us a fantastic look at what’s going around. And whilst some of us readers know the real identity of the Yorkshire Ripper, and so knows when Miv might be barking up the wrong tree, it’s still so exciting that you really end up believing her suspicions and willing them on. This change in viewpoints is such a cleverly crafted way of giving us the opinions of a child and comparing it with the opinions of an adult, and you really see the different perspectives throughout the book.
As much as I didn’t want to put it down, I had to go in order to go to sleep, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It’s so addictive that I couldn’t wait for the morning to pick it up again. As it would happen, I didn’t get much sleep that night and so read a good chunk of it at about 4am, but that was fine as it meant I got back to it sooner.
There are some very serious topics in this, obviously death and murder, but also mental illness, employment worries, bullying, racism, unwanted sexual attention, violence, the threat of violence, political differences, the idea of being displaced and not belonging – it’s heavy, it’s a heavy book, and yet it never feels hard to wade through. Which, for me, shows that Jennie has balanced the good and the bad perfectly to make it a very good piece of entertainment.
She has balanced grief beautifully. I’ve had my fair share of it over the years, and it’s different for each relative or friend you lost. I won’t spoil it, but there is a certain amount of grief in this book, of the typical bereavement type, but also the grief of losing a job, losing a friend, losing your home. Jennie has handled them so well that I can feel she must have her own personal experience with it, because every word has been thought through and it is perfect for every situation.
Another thing I really loved was her handling of the victims. It’s hard when dealing with a serial killer not to stray into the gratuitous, but she’s done it nicely. She’s not overplayed it and used their deaths in a violent way, nor has she brushed them under the carpet as if they were unimportant. And also, Jennie has listed all of the Ripper’s victims at the back of the book in recognition of these women, which was a nice touch.
I hadn’t expected to be so moved by it. I was in floods of tears at various points for various reasons. It’s got to be one of the most beautiful uses of language I’ve ever read.
Having said all that, I cannot fully find the words to explain how much of a masterpiece this book is. It’s something you will feel for yourself. But if you want to read one book this year that will stay with you over the next years – choose this one.
Books By Your Bedside 