Tessa Harris is a journalist who writes crime fiction set in the past. Her newest novel is The Sixth Victim.

Jack the Ripper stalks the street of the Whitechapel district of London, leaving women afraid to be on the streets at night. Constance Piper fears the Ripper, but she has other worries as well, like the odd things that have been happening to her, making her question all she’s ever known. If only her mentor, Emily Tindall, was around to give her advice.

But Emily is gone, returned to Oxford, they say, so Constance is on her own to deal with the sudden influx of clairvoyants, all offering to talk to the murdered girls. The gossip is about the latest horrifying remains found, and a lady tracks Constance down and asks for her help, afraid the latest victim is her missing sister. Constance agrees, and soon finds herself on the receiving end of help that makes her question everything she ever thought she knew about the world around her.

The Sixth Victim is a well-researched look into the famous serial killer of the 1800s. It depicts the squalor of Whitechapel, through the eyes of a character who wants more than the life she’s living, and who finds out that what she thought of the world isn’t quite true. At turns creepy and gruesome, the novel explores one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in history.

(Galley provided by Kensington Books.)

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