LostGoneForeverLOST AND GONE FOREVER
Alex Grecian
G. P. Putnam Sons

It has been a year since we have last seen the Murder Squad of Scotland Yard and much has happened. Nevil Hammersmith is no longer with the squad, due to a combination of a dogged pursuit of Walter Day and several decisions that didn’t agree with the head of the squad. No one has seen Day for a year, but his friends and family haven’t given up hope. Worst of all, no one has sighted the infamous Jack the Ripper in the same amount of time, leaving the greatest villain of the Murder Squad roaming the streets. The stage is set for another amazing thriller by Alex Grecian.

Returning to New Scotland Yard, Grecian crafts another masterpiece set in 1890s London. It is a city filled with secrets, violence, wonders, and mystery. Hammersmith has been searching for his friend and former partner, Walter Day, for a year with no sign. Little does he know, Day has been imprisoned by Jack the Ripper for the whole time. When Jack releases him, Day doesn’t know if he can trust his own mind, and decides he cannot return home. However, sightings of him begin to filter to Hammersmith, and he begins to track down his old friend.

Meanwhile, Jack begins to hunt down the members of the Karstphanomen and take vengeance for the tortures they subjected to him to. In an act of desperation, a member of the society hires murders of his own to track down and kill Jack. However, they are as frightening and dangerous as Jack himself, and are now unleashed upon London. As the threads of the net pull tighter, no one will be spared from the horrors to come.

Time and time again, Alex Grecian proves himself to be a master of the thriller. In lesser hands, Jack the Ripper would just be another characture of the murderer of infamy. Grecian turns Jack into a gut-wrenching villain who is the equal of Hannibal Lecter at his worst. He will haunt your dreams and chill your soul page after page. This is the finest of all the Scotland Yard books so far. I say so far in hopes that Grecian will give us many returns to the squad he has so fantastically created. Fair warning, however, this is the fifth in the series. Do not start with this book. Go back to the beginning. This is far more of a saga than a traditional series in the modern turn, capped by this brilliant, latest book.
-Bryan VanMeter