Ripper by Isabel Allende

Ripper by Isabel Allende

Read by Edoardo Ballerina

14 hours, 28 minutes

Published January 2014 by HarperCollins

Publisher's Summary: 

The Jackson women, Indiana and Amanda, have always had each other. Yet, while 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's 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, like her father, the SFPD's Deputy Chief of Homicide. Brilliant and introverted, the MIT-bound high school senior is a natural-born sleuth addicted to crime novels and Ripper, the online mystery game she plays with her beloved grandfather and friends around the world.

When a string of strange murders occurs across the city, Amanda plunges into her own investigation, discovering, before the police do, that the deaths may be connected. But the case becomes all too personal when Indiana suddenly vanishes. Could her mother's disappearance be linked to the serial killer? Now, with her mother's life on the line, the young detective must solve the most complex mystery she's ever faced before it's too late.

My Thoughts: 

I used to devour Isabel Allende books, starting with The House of the Spirits, more than forty years ago. Her story telling was so good that I accepted the magical realism of it. It's been years now since I read any of Allende's works (not sure why) so when I was looking for something to listen to recently and this came up, I decided it was time to get back to her. 

I'm sorry to say that this one was a disappointment. Despite the publisher's pitch that this is a fast-paced book, it dragged for me, focusing so much on introducing so many people in Indiana's life and less on Amanda's and her friends' investigation into the recent murders in San Francisco. Allende asks readers to believe that a deputy chief of homocide would be willing to release details of murder investigations to his former father-in-law and his daughter, which I never bought into. We were at least two thirds of the way through the book before things finally really started to pick up and I became truly interested in finding out how this would play out. You knew the murderer was going to be someone we'd been introduced to, but I'll give Allende due credit for giving that reveal a real twist I was not expecting. In the end, all of those people finally came together but I still felt like too much time had been spent on fleshing them out. 

Edoardo Ballerini, as always, does a fabulous job with this one and was a real saving grace to keep me listening. I could recommend a lot of Allende's books to you; unfortunately, this isn't one of them.