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    Ripper: A Novel
    Ripper: A Novel
    Ripper: A Novel
    Ebook516 pages8 hours

    Ripper: A Novel

    By Isabel Allende

    3/5

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    About this ebook

    Isabel Allende—the New York Times bestselling author whose books, including Maya’s Notebook, Island Beneath the Sea, and Zorro, have sold more than 57 million copies around the world—demonstrates her remarkable literary versatility with Ripper, an atmospheric, fast-paced mystery involving a brilliant teenage sleuth who must unmask a serial killer in San Francisco.

    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJan 28, 2014
    ISBN9780062291417
    Author

    Isabel Allende

    Isabel Allende is the author of twelve works of fiction, including the New York Times bestsellers Maya’s Notebook, Island Beneath the Sea, Inés of My Soul, Daughter of Fortune, and a novel that has become a world-renowned classic, The House of the Spirits. Born in Peru and raised in Chile, she lives in California.

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    Reviews for Ripper

    3/5

    263 ratings38 reviews

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    • 3/5
      good, fast read.
    • 1/5
      I really disliked this. It won't take long for the discerning reader to unravel the mystery, and there's a lot of ridiculousness here (a group of children helping police solve a crime). A main character named "Indiana" whose daughter is going to MIT (of course - why would you want a simply smart and engaging young woman. Have her go to MIT!). Very silly characters. I would not read anything by this author again.
    • 2/5
      This novel had an engaging plot involving a series of murders that were being treated as separate cases by the police, but considered to be serial by a group of amateurs. The characters were mostly stereotypes (e.g., new-age healer, teenager, divorced husband, wounded warrior, doting grandfather, etc.,etc.) and many of the premises were not very believable (i.e.,amateurs solving crimes that the polices cannot over the Internet). The climax was exciting but the solution seemed to be just patched together and was also pretty far-fetched. I don't think crime thrillers are Allende's forte. She should stick to what she does best.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed Ripper, however, it did require that I overlook the broad characters who were more like caricatures and suspend belief in several instances.A motley group from around the world connects online to try to solve the historic Jack the Ripper murders. Amanda, a high school senior, is the leader of the crew and her grandfather Blake is her henchman. When Amanda's grandmother predicts a spate of murders in their hometown of San Francisco, the group tracks and investigates the killings. Amanda's father is the Deputy Chief of Homicide and shares details of the investigation with his daughter and father-in-law. The duo manages to out-think the department along the way.When Amanda's mother goes missing, most are concerned that she may be the next victim of a possible serial killer, and the online detectives step up their search for the murderer.
    • 4/5
      This book was quite a departure from Allende's usual fare, or is it? Her original intent was to co-write a mystery with her husband but their work habits were so different she went ahead on her own with this result. While there is a serial murderer on the loose in San Francisco, this book turned out to be more character driven than plot driven. Filling almost 500 pages are detailed descriptions of all of the players along with their histories and the events that brought them together.At the center of the story is a bright teen, Amanda, her mother, Indiana, and the grandfather, Blake (known online as Kabel). Her mother has two beaus - Alan, ne'er-d-well member of a rich family, and Ryan, an ex-Navy SEAL. She is what people would envision a modern day hippy. She works in a holistic clinic and gives aromatherapy and massages to her clients. The last main member is Amanda's father, SFPD's deputy chief of homicide, Bob Martín.Amanda is the leader of an online group who originally started out to solve the Ripper murders of London, got bored, and decided to turn their attention to current cases. As most readers are familiar with the many police procedural programs on TV and various book series, many of the things that happen are glaringly mishandled, such as Bob letting the grandfather look through the case files knowing full well that the information will end up with his daughter.So why did I enjoy this book? It takes place in the San Francisco area and takes the reader around to parts of the East Bay and wine country - always fun. I enjoy books featuring teens who do something with their time other than bullying each other or strutting around like peacocks. That gives me hope. I also enjoy books where the adults take the teens seriously and don't just blow them off when they have something to share. The long build up ends with a climatic ending, worthy of any good murder mystery.
    • 4/5
      I have history with Isabel Allende, beginning with The House of the Spirits, a book I first read when it came out in paperback. I was on my honeymoon in Puerto Vallarta and it was a wonderful place to read it and a wonderful story. I've since read many of her books and I always find something to love in them.In theory, Ripper is a thriller, a bit of suspense, a crime novel. In reality, Ripper is the story of a sprawling network of family, friends, and acquaintances in San Francisco, particularly in the North Beach neighborhood (one of my favorite places in the city, and not just because of the City Lights bookstore, although that doesn't hurt it). If you need your crime novels to follow a standard trajectory of crime, detection, and capture, this book probably won't work for you, but if you approach it as a character-driven novel you'll enjoy yourself.I really liked this book, even though it contains few of the elements of magical realism that have made Ms. Allende's novels famous. I loved getting to know these characters, their backstories, their current stories, and the thread of danger that interlaces their lives in this moment. From a teenager who runs an online role-playing game devoted to solving serial crime to Indiana - an unconventional healer, to Ryan - an Afghan war vet and amputee and his comrade in arms - the dog, Attila, I wanted to know everything about them all and Ms. Allende delivered. She also captures all the things I love about San Francisco and its flavors - the character of the various neighborhoods that make the city wonderful - without dwelling on (nor ignoring) its huge negatives, Ripper is a love note to the city, to family of all kinds, and will keep you reading long into the night.
    • 4/5
      It's been many years since I first read and enjoyed an Isabel Allende novel. She is best known for magical realism in her literary novels, so I was surprised to find that she tried her hand at the mystery/thriller genre with her latest work, Ripper.Ripper has a serial killer at work in San Francisco, but no one know it yet. Amanda, a high school senior at a nearby boarding school run by feminist nuns (very cool!), is kind of nerdy and smart and spends time with other smart, nerdy teens in an online role playing game called Ripper.They are intrigued by an astrologer (and friend to Amanda's mother Indiana) who predicts a bloodbath of murders will take place in San Francisco, and when a high school security guard is found brutally murdered, they have their first case.Amanda's father is a police detective, so Amanda tries to get information for her team from him. Amanda's grandfather (Indiana's father) Blake is part of team Ripper, and I loved his relationship with his granddaughter. They love each other fiercely, and Blake spends as much time as he can with Amanda.The story opens with Amanda telling us that her mother is being held by the serial killer, so we read the rest of the rest of the story waiting to find out why and how this happens. This conceit ratchets up the tension dramatically.Other murders occur and the police don't believe they are connected until team Ripper puts all the pieces together. Amanda's father does not like his daughter's interest and involvement in these murders, but at least Blake is there to keep an eye on things.Indiana Jackson is a holistic healer, a real crunchy-granola type. She is also knockout gorgeous and can get men to do whatever she asks, but she doesn't take advantage of that. She is in love with Alan Keller, who is from a wealthy family but doesn't like to work. Ryan, a former Navy SEAL who lost a leg in the war and now works for the CIA in some kind of clandestine manner, is a client of Indiana's. They are good friends, but he would like to be more than that.As I was reading the story, I thought there were too many characters to keep track of- Indiana's many clients, the Ripper team, police, murder victims- it felt overwhelming. But as the story got rolling, I saw how everything came together and it worked.Allende gives a few clues as to who the murderer may be, which I picked up on, but I had no idea how or why the murderer killed. The final resolution was a little hard to swallow, although the action scenes at the end were nail-biting.The characters in the story are well-drawn and interesting, and I was particularly interested in Ryan's backstory. If the mystery's resolution stretches credulity a bit, I am willing to go with it because I liked the characters so much.The book is translated from the Spanish by Ollie Brock and Frank Wynne, and they did a marvelous job. I would have never guessed that the author wasn't from San Francisco herself.
    • 2/5
      Ripper was my first experience with Isabel Allende, and, as I understand it, her first foray into crime fiction. I knew going in this would be a slower paced mystery/thriller type novel, and that is okay. I can appreciate a book that takes its time, one that spends a lot of time developing the characters, and setting up the story. Ripper opens with a rather heinous murder that is brought to the attention of a group of online role players, led by Amanda Martin, with her grandfather acting as her henchman who have decided to try their hand at solving real life crimes instead of their own make believe ones. It's an interesting premise to say the least.

      The real story, however, lies with Indiana, Amanda, Martin, and Amanda's grandfather, with Indiana always at the center. It makes sense given she is targeted by the killer--something revealed to the reader up front. What the reader doesn't know is why or how. And so, Isabel Allende's novel, Ripper, unfolds.

      The author spends much time describing Indiana's life and the people she encounters. Each of those people play an important role in events to come, and I have to say, I appreciated the depth the author went into with each character, including the more eccentric and mysterious ones. I especially liked how the author breathed life into her characters. I really came to care for Amanda and her mother, Indiana. Both were very different in terms of personality, but they are strong female leads, nonetheless. I also really liked Amanda's grandfather--even though I did have to wonder at times how easily led by Amanda he was.

      Ryan, the former Navy SEAL and his dog, were such interesting characters, especially given Ryan's past and the obstacles he had to overcome after losing his leg in battle. The emotional turmoil he went through was palatable, especially given the psychological aspects of what he'd been through--and done. And the dog, a war hero in her own right. Atilla's own story was very moving. I loved that dog.

      I wish the author had allowed the reader to spend more time with the Ripper group in general. They were an interesting group of kids, misfits really, each bringing their own knowledge and skills to the table.

      At times I felt as if the author threw just about everything, including the kitchen sink, she could into this novel--and, somehow, it worked, mostly. Allende is clearly a gifted storyteller. Just about everything she includes in this novel has a purpose. And while some threads of the story were stronger than others, some more necessary than others, it made for an interesting and entertaining novel.

      It took a while for the mystery to unravel, and very little happens over the first half of the novel in terms of the actual solving of the crime. I did wish the story hadn't meandered quite as much in the middle as it did. Nothing a tightening of the plot couldn't resolve. The biggest trouble I had with the book, at it was a big one for me, was near the end. Not the end itself, mind you, but the way the author revealed the who and why of the mystery. The suspense was intense and the edge of your seat kind. I did not mind the slow down as the point of view changed from the good guys to the bad. Writing devices like that only increase the suspense. What bothered me was the repetition. As the good guys uncovered major bits of the mystery, the view would shift to the killer, who would then go over the same information without much more insight than I, as the reader, had already been given. It happened again and again, enough the throw me out of the story. Still, the ending is, like I said, intense and quite a ride. It was a fitting ending to the novel overall.

      And can I just add how much I loved the setting of the novel? San Francisco is one of my favorite cities. I am always happy to spend time there, in person or in a book.

      There was much I liked about this book even as there were some aspects I had trouble with. I am curious about Allende's other books and hope to one day try something else by her. So many others love her writing. I want to too, but this wasn't a book that won be over.
    • 2/5
      I'm pretty sure I'm going to hell for giving Isabel Allende 2 stars. I love her, not just her writing, she seems like a complete and utter delight. This isn't a horrible book it just didn't make it to good for me. I enjoyed the aspects of the characters, especially the central familial characters, but the story felt over the top and conversely boring. It was kind of like watching a Bruckheimer film. They are exhilarating and boring in my view. But, a lot of people love those successful films. I think there is an audience who validly loves this book, but I just couldn't get fully into it.
    • 1/5
      This is the book. THE BOOK. The one about which I finally stand up and say NO MORE. I have been a fan of Allende's all the way back to the beginning. Eva Luna, House of the Spirits, Of Love and Shadows; these books all blew me away. Her lyrical prose, the magical realism style with which she exposes the corruption of unnamed South American countries and opened my eyes to a different world. Then, along came Daughter of Fortune, a novel set in the gold-rush era in California. I loathed that book and hoped for every character to die an terrible death just so the book would end already. I knew there was no way I'd pick up her next book, Portrait in Sepia, and make it out alive. I didn't read her work again until Maya's Notebook, though Ines of my Soul is on my bookshelf. Maya's Notebook was a semi-crime novel but it took a long way to get to the point. I only enjoyed it because it took me back to South America, a place where I feel Allende brings her best self.But Ripper? Oh, no, no, NO! I tried, I really did. I read over 200 pages before I finally screamed and threw the book. It is described as "an atmospheric, fast-paced mystery involving a brilliant teenage sleuth who must unmask a serial killer in San Francisco." Oh, really now? Fast-paced? Like a snail maybe. How about as fast as an old man walking up Everest using only a cane? Yeah, about that fast. And the teenage sleuth Amanda? She and her forays into an online game called Ripper which she uses to try and solve a series of crimes happening in San Fransisco are brief interludes between the long, long descriptions and back story of her mother, Indiana, and her many lovers and friends. Of course one them is the killer. I hope it isn't the really obvious one. But I skipped to the end and it is! Shocker.The long, boring descriptions ruined a good premise. Had it focused more on Amanda and her investigation and her relationship with her grandfather, it would have been better, tons better.I am realizing more and more than when authors reach a certain status, anything they write will get published and I'm sure no one deigns to edit her highness. If you are going to title your book "Ripper", there are going to be expectations of a decent crime novel. Which this wasn't. Which Allende can't write. But is anyone who works with her going to tell her so? Probably not. She is a highly respected novelist. People write great reviews on crappy work because it makes them feel more literary. Not me. The Emperor wears no clothes and I'm not afraid to say it. I've read great novels. This was not one of those. Do not waste your time or money! $14 for this? Good-bye Isabel, we will not meet again.
    • 2/5
      Let me start this review by saying that when I went to add Ripper to my Goodreads "currently reading" list, I was dismayed to see the plethora of low star ratings. I couldn't understand it - surely it was a bunch of people who didn't know what they were talking about. You see, this is not my first Allende book and I was confident that I knew her style, I knew what she was capable of and there was just no way that she could put out anything that would merit less than four stars from me.Read the rest of this review at The Lost Entwife on Dec. 19, 2013.
    • 3/5
      Isabel Allende's Island Beneath the Sea is one of my favourite books. (my review) I think she's brilliant when it comes to writing historical fiction. Her last novel, Maya's Notebook, (my review) was a contemporary piece with a teenage protagonist.Ripper is Allende's latest novel and is again set in present day with a teenage protagonist. Amanda and her five teenage online friends from around the world are part of a role playing game named Ripper. They investigate "fictional nineteenth century crimes in a fog-shrouded London where characters were faced with scoundrels armed with axes and icepicks, archetypal villains intent on disturbing the peace of the city." When a famous astrologer (who just happens to be Amanda's godmother) predicts a "bloodbath" in Amanda's city (San Francisco) the young crime solvers move their focus to real time cases. Okay, so that's the basic premise. It actually took me a bit to get into the novel. There are numerous characters and connections introduced in the first few chapters. I admit to feeling a bit confused as I tried to work out what the focus of the book was. Is it the murders? Or is it the story of Amanda's mother Indiana? Indi is a free spirited new ager who is torn between two lovers. There are many more storylines as the book continues - a few too many in my opinion. I usually enjoy Allende's in-depth study of her characters, but in Ripper I just felt overwhelmed. Some of the relationships seemed odd, stilted and convenient. Amanda's father just happens to be the Deputy Police Chief of Homicide. Much of the Ripper players' knowledge is freely and easily obtained from him. ( I just never really bought the Ripper players - they seemed more of a prop than an effective part of the book.) Many of the (numerous) other characters are clichéd and overdrawn. From the author's acknowledgements: "This book was born on January 8, 2012 when my agent, Carmen Balcells, suggest to my husband, Willie Gordon, and me that we cowrite a crime novel. We tried, but within twenty-four hours it was clear the project would end in divorce. So he stuck to his own work - his sixth detective novel- while I shut myself away to write alone, as always." I appreciate that an author would be interested in exploring something new and applaud Allende's foray into new genres. But, for this reader, Ripper was a bit of strange read. It was just way too busy and tried to do too much. There's the murder mystery, social commentary on war and the legal system, history, a love story, exploration of alternative therapies, new ageism, and more. The identity of the whodunit is well telegraphed despite the twist that Allende employs at the end. And the murderer's motive has been done many times before. (And the publisher's blurb of 'fast-paced mystery' misses the mark completely) I still think Allende is a wonderful writer, but Ripper missed the mark for me.
    • 5/5
      One of the best books I have read this year, one of the best books period, Ripper is amazing, everything I hoped it would be from the description. A string of seemingly unrelated killings occur, and a group who play an online role-playing crime solving game (called "Ripper") attempt to solve each killing, slowly piecing together more than even the police have.The ending is incredible, to say the least. The way everything comes together, and there is even a twist on top of the twist (none of which I saw coming), puts this book on the top of the heap.
    • 2/5
      My first impression of this mystery novel is that the writing was rather clunky. Whether that is due to the original writing or the translation, I cannot know. As the book went on, it didn't bother me as much so either the author/translators got better or I got used to the style.My second impression is that the characters were caricatures and stereotypes. Really, a Navy SEAL Team Six amputee and a flighty, kindhearted New Age Californian? (If all the fictional characters who were part of SEAL Team Six were added together, that prestigious team would likely have numbered in the thousands.)Multiple people were murdered, but the reader was told very little about the victims initially and it was hard to be drawn into the story. A group of misfit teens and a grandfather were going to solve the murder: Hey, let's look at this murder. Okay, let's skip that one and go on to this one. No, let's look into this third one....I was blindsided and disgusted when dogfighting entered the picture. I had to skim over those pages. There was no need for that in the story, it felt gratuitous, there only for the shock value. While I'm on my soapbox, let's keep animals out of human wars. They are our wars, and we should not use animals to fight them. We cause the animals enough grief without using them as weapons.At 400+ pages in the edition I read, this story dragged on, and for the most part, just bored me.I was given an advance reader's edition for review.
    • 2/5
      Could not finish this book. Read it in Spanish, the author's native language, and still, did not enjoy it. Read about one hundred pages, the character development is ridiculously long. And every time she uses first name and surname when she mentions each person. Too boring.
    • 4/5
      Don't read it for the mystery, read it for the things which make an Allende novel so rich and satisfying: a large, diverse cast with complex backstories and complicated relationships. Solving the mystery is the driver of the plot, but it isn't compelling in the way that Amanda's relationship with her family is. The teen characters playing Ripper together aren't explored very deeply. But the adults are. There are the divorced but amiable parents, their respective partners, their parents, their siblings, friends, co-workers...

      Whodunnit is a piece of cake, but why is the story.

      Library copy
    • 3/5
      I didn't feel this book was up to the high standard of Allende's other books. It is partly a mystery and maybe Allende just wanted to explore what it was like to write in that genre. But also I just didn't connect with any of these characters and I don't know that I can say that of any of her other books. I know it wasn't because I was listening to this as an audiobook because I have read several of her books that way. It certainly wasn't the fault of the narrator. Edoardo Ballerini did an excellent job of switching voices and accents.Amanda Martin is a young teenager living with her mother, Indiana, and grandfather in San Francisco. Her father is a murder investigator with the SFPD (what a boon for a young girl who wants to investigate a murder). Amanda's godmother has forecast the SF will run with blood and a series of murders that seem to be connected are bearing out that prophecy. Amanda has just the software tool to investigate the claim (it is basically a chat room of like-minded teens). Then the man that her mother was going to marry is killed and Indiana goes missing. Everyone jumps on board the investigation wagon. You know what happens, right?I think Ms Allende should stick to literary fiction with a side of magical realism and leave the crime genre to people who can do it justice.
    • 3/5
      Isabel Allende devotes her talent to a murder mystery and investigation in her latest book, Ripper, a recommended novel.

      Ripper opens with the ominous warning from Amanda Martin concerning Indiana Jackson, her mother: "Mom is still alive, but she's going to be murdered at midnight on Good Friday..." Amanda and her mother are complete opposites in many ways but she shares a strong bond with Indiana, a holistic healer, and even more so with her grandfather, Blake Jackson. Amanda's father is Deputy Chief Bob Martin. Amanda plays an online role playing game called Ripper with 4 friends and her grandfather.

      After Amanda's astrologer godmother, Celeste Roko, predicts a bloodbath in San Francisco, the murder of Ed Stanton occurs. Amanda and her grandfather mark this as the first murder in the coming bloodbath and transform the online Ripper from a game into a criminal investigation as a series of murders take place in San Francisco. Since Amanda's father, Bob Martin, is leading the murder investigations, Amanda and her grandfather Blake have unprecedented access to all manner of inside information on the investigation from the police, which certainly will stretch believability for most crime aficionados. Feeling much younger than 17, Amanda repeatedly reminded me of Alan Bradley's young female sleuth, Flavia de Luce.

      Allende extensively covers the three months leading up to the threat to Indiana's life while thoroughly and exhaustively analyzing the eccentric cast of main characters. All of this results in making Ripper a rather unconventional murder mystery, but certainly a very enjoyable mystery. We are privy to a vast amount of inside information about many of the characters. Having never read Allende to this point (don't judge - I have some issues with magic realism) I have to guess that this is Allende's preferred way to establish characterization. It's just not the norm for this genre.

      I felt at a certain point that I was just being given too much superfluous information and it was slowing the pace down. Part of the thrill in reading mysteries for me is the fast pace and the slow, miserly release of information. However, the other part of enjoyment I find in mysteries is guessing who-dun-it and Allende did an excellent job embedding the killer into the story, although part of that is simple due to the sheer volume of information about people.

      In the end, while I enjoyed her writing and the descriptions of her characters, her writing style didn't quite work for me in a mystery. I can't fault the book for her writing, though, because I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

      Disclosure: I received an advanced reading copy of this book from the HarperCollins for review purposes.
    • 3/5
      Set in contemporary times. Not one of Allendes best works, I completed it, but don't remember the details several months later.
    • 3/5
      2 audio discscontemporary fiction, murder, mystery, san francisco, violence, warI chose this because I thought I had previously read (and liked) Allende.Remember: This is my opinion alone...others may see it through an entirely different lens.Too long....unnecessarily graphic (in violence and sex portrayals).....areas where I was tempted (but didn't) move to the next tract.I felt a great deal could have been siphoned off and still left a decent suspense/thriller.Not my cuppa....perhaps someone else can properly appreciate it.3 ★
    • 3/5
      Still a little unbelievable even though Allende was trying for realism. The last 100 pages were good though.
    • 3/5
      Ripper was an interesting story, with a different story line, but alas it was not a page turner. I found myself distracted by even the slightest things, and this is quite unusual for me. I am an avid reader, who always has a book going... I'm not easily distracted! That said, I was invested enough to need closure, and that came with a couple twists and a very convoluted villain. This story is well worth a read, but is best suited for a flight or journey by train without distractions.
    • 1/5
      Whenever I am about to write a "not so great" review it pains me to no end. I have a great amount of respect for the process of writing and for the writers themselves. And to complicate things even more Isabel Allende is one of my all time favorite authors. The way she plays with words, the themes and stories she creates stay with me long after I've finished reading the book. I knew that Ripper would be a departure from her usual style and genre but I embraced the idea of that change. Yet in the end it felt like such a struggle just trying to convince myself to finish this book.Amanda, one of the main characters and the designated sleuth is supposed to be 17 years old yet I had to keep reminding myself of that fact because for the most part the character was described as so immature that it felt like she was closer to 12-13 than 17. The game Ripper revolves around a group of teenagers interested in solving crimes so I initially thought that maybe the book will lean more towards Y.A. Then at other moments it sounded as if the book is targeting primarily adult audiences. Almost as if the story itself could not decide what genre to follow.The pace of the story was excruciatingly slow and each time I found myself even remotely interested in the mystery part of the book, it would end up going on a tangent about something completely unrelated. I learned way more about the background of each one of the characters than about the crimes. Instead emotionally connected to the characters I found myself thinking - "Alright already, I really don't care. Can we get back to the story now?".The biggest source of my disappointment was the fact that I kept questioning the fact that Isabel Allende's name was on the cover of this book - it just did not seem possible that she would write something of this quality (or lack thereof). The writing felt so choppy and unfocused that as I mentioned before it took a lot of effort not to give up altogether on reading the book. I did soldier on but in the end the only positive thing I can say about the whole affair is that it might potentially make a decent TV show. I still love and respect Isabel Allende, but I wholeheartedly hope that she will go back to writing such unforgettable books as The House of the Spirits.
    • 4/5
      This is good beach reading - nothing very profound, but it's engaging and the characters are likeable, if a bit one-dimensional. This isn't a formulaic murder mystery - in fact, until the last few chapters, I wouldn't have characterized it as a mystery at all, but just a story with some murders in the background.I listened to the audiobook, and enjoyed it.
    • 2/5
      I am still in the beginning of this book, but I am already frustrated to the point that I may not be able to finish it. Reading is tiresome, there are too many characters and all them are weirdos with extraordinary life histories, even the dog is odd. When a character is approaching a restaurant I am getting anxious that pretty soon we will learn the whole amazing life story of a waitress and/or the building itself. As if the author prepared a lot of material ahead of time and couldn’t help but tell us all she knew. Overall instead of having a pleasure or leisurely reading an elegant story with subtle thoughts, as I was used to with this author, I feel as if I were cheated to read a comic, it is disappointing and overwhelming.
    • 2/5
      What have you done with Isabel Allende? I want her back. I miss the surreal mysticism, drama and passion that permeates each page from beginning to end. I am all for experimenting with writing style and genre, but if it does not work at the level one usually achieves, save it for future thought.Ouch! That was harsh and I do not mean to be nasty. Yet, had I wanted a basic who-done-it novel I would have chosen a different author with a better grasp of the subject matter. Ripper is far too prosaic for Allende. The plot is interesting in very general terms, it being a mystery. But, for the most part, it simply plods along getting stuck in the mud once too often. The characters have potential, but are not developed enough to sustain my curiosity. Much of the book dragged on and on, going on tedious tangents while avoiding the main idea. There was nothing, overall, that held my attention. In my defense, since I normally love Isabel Allende’s work, I did not look forward to my continued reading of Ripper. I had to force myself to do so each time I picked it up. Two-thirds of the way through, I had to admit defeat and put it away for good. No one is perfect one-hundred percent of the time. So, no, I will not give up on one of my favored authors. I will quietly wait in hope for her next great novel.
    • 3/5
      I started out really liking this book. I thought the daughter's character and her interaction with her Grandfather and the "Ripper" group really made the story. But, they just couldn't carry it through to the end
    • 3/5
      Picked up an AR copy of this somewhere. Was interested in it for several reasons: I like the author, I'd not read her YA stuff, and I left my heart in San Francisco. There were many elements in the book which I liked, starting with the author's explanation of how the book came to be. It made me aware of her husband's body of work, which, if I remember, I'll seek out. I liked that she incorporated elements of his books through characters and references in this one. As a someone who practices tai chi each morning, and have done Qigong, I liked that this practice was an essential piece of one character's life. It was also kinda fun to trace the paths through San Francisco, though I never got a feel of the city itself.
    • 2/5
      I was very disappointed by this book. Allende is one of my favourite authors and I was really interested to see what she would do with a "murder mystery" type of story. Unfortunately the novel is good in places but mainly turgid and boring. I kept reading because I wanted to know who 'did' it and why but in the end I figured it out well before the end of the book and it didn't seem particularly plausible. I think that was the main problem with the whole book - despite the extensive character backgrounds given for everyone, few of them came across as real-live people that I could relate to.
    • 1/5
      Ripper is an online who-done-it game with a difference. The game master is Amanda. Amanda is as introverted as she is intelligent, yet she likes to take charge. She and her on line group of fellow social misfits enjoy investigating long ago crimes coming up with their own solutions. When a local astrologer predicts that San Francisco is going to experience a “blood bath” the Ripper players decide to turn their attentions to modern day crime … aided by Amanda’s long suffering grandfather and any information Amanda gleans from her father, a homicide detective. It all sounds like an exciting mystery to solve until it hits too close to home and Amanda’s mother becomes a victim.

      I found the concept of these five on line friends forming the “Ripper” club to solve crimes on line intriguing and that description is what prompted me to pick up the book. As it turns out, much to my disappointment, that concept is not the center of the storyline, in fact it’s only what amounts to a miniscule part of the story at all. Amanda’s new-age mother and her disappointing love life, poorly paying career choice and absentmindedness take over the plot. That was too bad because I really didn’t like the character. Unfortunately I did not like most of the characters in this book. With the exception of Amanda’s grandfather (who she dearly loves but constantly treats like crap) I found all of the character’s self centered and rude to each other. Even the serial killer responsible for the “blood-bath” was so overly complicated that by the big reveal at the end, I didn’t care any more. I will say that Ms. Allende was very clever with her antagonist. Very clever but overdone!

    Book preview

    Ripper - Isabel Allende

    Mom is still alive, but she’s going to be murdered at midnight on Good Friday," Amanda Martín told the deputy chief, who didn’t even think to question the girl; she’d already proved she knew more than he and all his colleagues in Homicide put together. The woman in question was being held at an unknown location somewhere in the seven thousand square miles of the San Francisco Bay Area; if they were to find her alive, they had only a few hours, and the deputy chief had no idea where or how to begin.

    They referred to the first murder as the Case of the Misplaced Baseball Bat, so as not to insult the victim by giving it a more explicit name. They were five teenagers and an elderly man who met up online for a role-playing game called Ripper.

    On the morning of October 11, 2011, at 8:15 a.m., the fourth-grade students of Golden Hills Elementary School raced into the gym to whistle blasts from their coach in the doorway. The vast, modern, well-equipped gym—built using a generous donation from a former pupil who had made a fortune in the property market before the bubble burst—was also used for graduation ceremonies, school plays, and concerts. Normally the fourth-graders would run two laps around the basketball court to warm up, but this morning they came to a shuddering halt in the middle of the hall, shocked by the grisly sight of a man sprawled across a vaulting horse, his pants pooled around his ankles, his buttocks bared, and the handle of a baseball bat inserted into his rectum. The stunned children stood motionless around the corpse until one nine-year-old boy, more daring than his classmates, bent down, ran his finger through the dark stain on the floor, and realized that it was not chocolate but congealed blood; a second boy picked up a spent bullet cartridge and slipped it into his pocket, intending to swap it during recess for a porn magazine, while a girl filmed the scene on her cell phone. Just then the coach bounded over to the little group of students, whistle trilling with every breath, and, seeing this strange spectacle—which did not look like a prank—suffered a panic attack. The fourth-graders raised the alarm; other teachers quickly appeared and dragged the children kicking and screaming from the gym, followed reluctantly by the coach. The teachers removed the baseball bat, and as they laid the corpse out on the floor, they noticed a bullet hole in the center of the victim’s forehead. They covered the body with a pair of sweatpants, closed the door, and waited for the police, who arrived precisely nineteen minutes later, by which time the crime scene had been so completely contaminated it was impossible to tell what the hell had happened.

    A little later, during the first press conference, Bob Martín announced that the victim had been identified as one Ed Staton, forty-nine, a school security guard. Tell us about the baseball bat! a prurient tabloid journalist yelled. Furious to discover that information about the case had been leaked, which was not only humiliating to Ed Staton but possibly damaging to the reputation of the school, the deputy chief snapped that such details would be addressed during the autopsy.

    What about suspects?

    This security guard, was he gay?

    Deputy Chief Martín ignored the barrage of questions and brought the press conference to a close, assuring those present that the Personal Crimes Division would keep the media informed of all pertinent facts in the investigation now under way—an investigation he would personally oversee.

    A group of twelfth-graders from a nearby high school had been in the gym the night before, rehearsing a Halloween musical involving zombies and rock ’n’ roll, but they did not find out what had happened until the following day. By midnight—some hours before the crime was committed, according to police—there was no one in the school building. Three teenagers in the parking lot, loading their instruments into a van, had been the last people to see Ed Staton alive. In their statements they said that the guard had waved to them before driving off in a small car at about twelve thirty. Although they were some way off, and there was no lighting in the parking lot, they had clearly recognized Staton’s uniform in the moonlight, but could not agree on the color or make of the car he was driving or whether anyone had been in the vehicle with him. The police quickly worked out that it was not the victim’s car, since Staton’s silver-gray SUV was parked a few yards from the band’s van. It was suggested that Staton had driven off with someone who was waiting for him, and who came back to the school later to pick up his car.

    At a second press conference, the deputy chief of the Personal Crimes Division explained that the guard was not due to finish his shift until 6:00 a.m., and that they had no information about why he had left the school that night, returning later only to find death lying in wait. Martín’s daughter Amanda, who was watching the press conference on TV, phoned her father to correct him: it was not death that had been lying in wait for Ed Staton, but a murderer.

    For the Ripper players, this first murder was the start of what would become a dangerous obsession. The questions they were faced with were those that also puzzled the police: Where did the guard go in the brief period between being seen by the band members and the estimated time of death? How did he get back to the school? Why had the guard not tried to defend himself before being shot through the head? What was the significance of a baseball bat being inserted into such an intimate orifice?

    Perhaps Ed Staton had deserved his fate, but the kids who played Ripper were not interested in moral issues; they focused strictly on the facts. Up to this point the game had revolved around fictional nineteenth-century crimes in a fog-shrouded London where characters were faced with scoundrels armed with axes and icepicks, archetypal villains intent on disturbing the peace of the city. But when the players agreed to Amanda Martín’s suggestion that they investigate murders in present-day San Francisco—a city no less shrouded in fog—the game took on a more realistic dimension. Celeste Roko, the famous astrologer, had predicted a bloodbath in the city, and Amanda decided to take this unique opportunity to put the art of divination to the test. To do so she enlisted the help of the other Ripper players and her best friend, Blake Jackson—her grandfather, coincidentally—little suspecting that the game would turn violent and that her mother, Indiana Jackson, would number among its victims.

    The kids who played Ripper were a select group of freaks and geeks from around the world who had first met up online to hunt down and destroy the mysterious Jack the Ripper, tackling obstacles and enemies along the way. As games master, Amanda was responsible for plotting these adventures, carefully bearing in mind the strengths and weaknesses of the players’ alter egos.

    A boy in New Zealand who had been paralyzed by an accident and was confined to a wheelchair—but whose mind was still free to explore fantastical worlds, to live in the past or in the future—created the character of Esmeralda, a cunning and curious gypsy girl. A shy, lonely teenager who lived with his mother in New Jersey, and who for two years now had left his bedroom only to go to the bathroom, played Sir Edmond Paddington, a bigoted, cantankerous retired English colonel—an invaluable character, since he was an expert in weapons and military strategy. A nineteen-year-old girl in Montreal who had spent much of her short life in the hospital suffering from an eating disorder, had created Abatha, a psychic capable of reading minds, manipulating memories, and communicating with the dead. A thirteen-year-old African American orphan with an IQ of 156 and a scholarship to an academy in Reno for gifted children decided to be Sherlock Holmes, since logic and deductive reasoning came effortlessly to him.

    In the beginning, Amanda did not have her own character. Her role was simply to oversee the game and make sure players respected the rules; but given the impending bloodbath, she allowed herself to bend those rules a little. She moved the action of the game from London, 1888, to San Francisco, 2011. Furthermore—now in direct breach of the rules—she created for herself a henchman named Kabel, a dim-witted but loyal and obedient hunchback she tasked with obeying her every whim, however ridiculous. It didn’t escape her grandfather’s notice that the henchman’s name was an anagram of his own. At sixty-four, Blake Jackson was much too old for children’s games, but he agreed to participate in Ripper so he and his granddaughter would have something more in common than horror movies, chess matches, and the brainteasers they set each other—puzzles and problems he sometimes managed to solve by consulting a couple of friends who were professors of philosophy and mathematics at Berkeley.

    January

    Monday, 2

    Lying facedown on the massage table, Ryan Miller was dozing under the healing hands of Indiana Jackson, a first-degree Reiki practitioner, well versed in the techniques developed by the Japanese Buddhist Mikao Usui in 1922. Having read sixty-odd pages on the subject, Ryan knew that there was no scientific proof that Reiki was actually beneficial, but he figured it had to have some mysterious power, since it had been denounced by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2009 as dangerous to Christian spiritual welfare.

    Indiana worked in Treatment Room 8 on the second floor of North Beach’s famous Holistic Clinic, in the heart of San Francisco’s Little Italy. The door to the surgery was painted indigo—the color of spirituality—and the walls were pale green, the color of health. A sign in copperplate script read INDIANA, HEALER, and beneath it was a list of the therapies she offered: intuitive massage, Reiki, magnet therapy, crystal therapy, aromatherapy. One wall of the tiny waiting room was decorated with a garish tapestry, bought from an Asian store, of the Hindu goddess Shakti as a sensual young woman with long raven hair, dressed all in red and adorned with golden jewels. In one hand she held a sword, in another a flower. The goddess was depicted as having many arms, and each hand held one of the symbols of her power—which ranged from a musical instrument to something that looked like a cell phone. Indiana was such a devout disciple of Shakti that she had once considered taking her name until her father, Blake Jackson, managed to convince her that a Hindu goddess’s name was not appropriate for a tall, voluptuous blond American with the looks of an inflatable doll.

    Given the nature of his work and his background in the military, Ryan was a skeptic, yet he gratefully surrendered to Indiana’s tender ministrations. He left each session feeling weightless and euphoric—something that could be explained either as a placebo effect combined with his puppyish infatuation with the healer, as his friend Pedro Alarcón suggested, or, as Indiana insisted, by the fact that his chakras were now correctly aligned. This peaceful hour was the most pleasurable in his solitary existence, and Ryan experienced more intimacy in his healing sessions with Indiana than he did in his strenuous sexual gymnastics with Jennifer Yang, the most regular of his lovers. He was a tall, heavyset man with the neck and shoulders of a wrestler, arms as thick and stout as tree trunks, and the delicate hands of a pastry chef. He had dark, close-cropped hair streaked with gray, teeth that seemed too white to be natural, pale gray eyes, a broken nose, and thirteen visible scars, including his stump. Indiana suspected he had other scars, but she hadn’t seen him without his boxer shorts. Yet.

    How do you feel? the healer asked.

    Great. I’m starving, though—that’s probably because I smell like dessert.

    That’s orange essential oil. If you’re just going to make fun, I don’t know why you bother coming.

    To see you, babe, why else?

    In that case, my therapies aren’t right for you, Indiana snapped.

    You know I’m just kidding, Indi.

    Orange oil is a youthful and happy essence—two qualities you seem to lack, Ryan. And I’ll have you know that Reiki is so powerful that second-degree practitioners are capable of ‘distance healing’; they can work without the patient even being present—though I’d probably need to spend twenty years studying in Japan to get to level two.

    Don’t even think about distance healing. Without you here, this would be a lousy deal.

    Healing is not a deal!

    Everyone’s got to make a living. You charge less than your colleagues at the Holistic Clinic. Do you know how much Yumiko charges for a single acupuncture session?

    I’ve no idea, and it’s none of my business.

    Nearly twice as much as you, said Ryan. Why don’t you let me pay you more?

    You’re my friend. I’d rather you didn’t pay at all, but if I didn’t let you pay, you probably wouldn’t come back. You won’t allow yourself to be in anyone’s debt. Pride is your great sin.

    Would you miss me?

    No, because we’d still see each other as friends. But I bet you’d miss me. Come on, admit it, these sessions have really helped. Remember how much pain you were in when you first came? Next week, we’ll do a session of magnet therapy.

    And a massage, please. You’ve got the hands of an angel.

    Okay, and a massage. Now get your clothes on, I’ve got another client waiting.

    Don’t you find it weird that almost all your clients are men? asked Ryan, clambering down from the massage table.

    They’re not all men—I treat women too, as well as a few children. And one arthritic poodle.

    Ryan was convinced that if Indiana’s other male clients were anything like him, they paid simply to be near her, not because they had any faith in her healing methods. This was what had first brought him to Treatment Room 8, something he admitted to Indiana during their third session so there would be no misunderstandings, and also because his initial attraction had blossomed into friendship. Indiana had burst out laughing—she was well used to come-ons—and made a bet with him that after two or three weeks, when he felt the results, he would change his mind. Ryan accepted the bet, suggesting dinner at his favorite restaurant. If you can cure me, I’ll pick up the tab, otherwise dinner is on you, he said, hoping to spend time with her somewhere more conducive to conversation than these two cramped cubicles, watched over by the omniscient Shakti.

    Ryan and Indiana had met in 2009, on one of the trails that wound through Samuel P. Taylor State Park among thousand-year-old, three-hundred-foot-high trees. Indiana had taken her bicycle on the ferry across San Francisco Bay, and once in Marin County cycled the twenty or so miles to the park as part of her training for a long bike ride to Los Angeles she planned to make a few weeks later. As a rule, Indiana thought sports were pointless, and she had no particular interest in keeping fit; but her daughter, Amanda, was determined to take part in a charity bike ride for AIDS, and Indiana was not about to let her go alone.

    She had just stopped the bike to take a drink from her water bottle, one foot on the ground, when Ryan raced past with Attila on a leash. She didn’t see the dog until it was practically on top of her; the shock sent her flying, and she ended up tangled in the bike frame. Ryan apologized, helped her to her feet, and tried to straighten the buckled wheel while Indiana dusted herself off. She was more concerned about Attila than with her own bumps and bruises. She’d never before seen such a disfigured animal: the dog had scars everywhere, bald patches on its belly, and two metallic fangs worthy of Dracula in an otherwise toothless maw; one of its ears was missing, as though hacked off with scissors. She stroked the animal’s head gently and leaned down to kiss its snout, but Ryan quickly jerked her away.

    Don’t get your face too close! Attila’s a war dog.

    What breed is he?

    Purebred Belgian Malinois. They’re smarter and stronger than German shepherds, and they keep their backs straight, so they don’t suffer from hip problems.

    What on earth happened to the poor thing?

    He survived a land-mine explosion, Ryan said, dipping his handkerchief in the cold water of the river, where a week earlier he’d watched salmon leaping against the current in their arduous swim upstream to spawn. Miller handed Indiana the wet handkerchief to dab the grazes on her legs. He was wearing track pants, a sweatshirt, and something that looked like a bulletproof jacket—it weighed forty-five pounds, he explained, making it perfect for training because when he took it off to race, he felt like he was flying. They sat among the thick, tangled roots of a tree and talked, watched over by Attila, who studied Ryan’s every move as though waiting for an order and from time to time nuzzled Indiana and discreetly sniffed her. The warm afternoon, heady with the scent of pine needles and dead leaves, was lit by shafts of sunlight that pierced the treetops like spears; the air quivered with birdsong, the hum of mosquitoes, the lapping of the creek, and the wind in the leaves; it was the perfect setting for a meeting in a romantic novel.

    Ryan had been a Navy SEAL—a former member of SEAL Team Six, the unit that in May 2011 launched the assault on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan. In fact, one of Ryan’s former teammates would be the one to kill the Al-Qaeda leader. When he and Indiana met, however, Ryan could not have known this would happen two years later; no one could, except perhaps Celeste Roko, by studying the movement of the planets. Ryan was granted an honorable discharge in 2007 after he lost a leg in combat—an injury that didn’t stop him continuing to compete as a triathlete, as he told Indiana. Up to this point she had scarcely looked at Ryan, focused as she was on the dog, but now she noticed that he wore only one shoe; his other leg ended in a curved blade.

    It’s called a Flex-Foot Cheetah—they model it on the way big cats run in the wild, he explained, showing her the prosthesis.

    How does it fit?

    He hiked up the leg of his pants, and she studied the contraption fastened to the stump.

    It’s carbon fiber, Ryan explained. It’s so light and perfect that officials tried to stop Oscar Pistorius, a South African double amputee, from competing in the Olympics because they said his prostheses gave him an unfair advantage over other runners. This model is designed for running, he went on, explaining with a certain pride that this was cutting-edge technology. I’ve got other prosthetics for walking and cycling.

    Doesn’t it hurt?

    Sometimes. But there’s other stuff that hurts more.

    Like what?

    Things from my past. But that’s enough about me—tell me about you.

    Sorry, but I haven’t got anything as interesting as a bionic leg, Indiana confessed, and I’ve only got one scar, which I’m not going to show you. As a kid, I fell on my butt on some barbed wire.

    Indiana and Ryan sat in the park, chatting about this and that under the watchful eye of Attila. She introduced herself—half joking, half serious—by telling him she was a Pisces, her ruling planet was Neptune, her lucky number 8, her element water, and her birthstones, silver-gray moonstone, which nurtures intuitive power, and aquamarine, which encourages visions, opens the mind, and promotes happiness. Indiana had no intention of seducing Ryan; for the past four years she had been in love with a man named Alan Keller and had chosen the path of fidelity. Had she wanted to seduce him, she would have talked about Shakti, goddess of beauty, sex, and fertility, since the mere mention of these attributes was enough to overcome the scruples of any man—Indiana was heterosexual—if her voluptuous body were not enough. Indiana never mentioned that Shakti was also the divine mother, the primordial life force, the sacred feminine—as these roles tended to put men off.

    Usually Indiana didn’t tell men that she was a healer by profession; she had met her fair share of cynics who listened to her talk about cosmic energy with a condescending smirk while they stared at her breasts. But somehow she sensed she could trust this Navy SEAL, so she gave him a brief account of her methods, though when put into words they sounded less than convincing even to her ears. To Ryan it sounded more like voodoo than medicine, but he pretended to be interested—the information gave him a perfect excuse to see her again. He told her about the cramps he suffered at night, the spasms that could sometimes bring him to a standstill in the middle of a race. Indiana prescribed a course of therapeutic massage and a diet of banana and kiwifruit smoothies.

    They were so caught up in the moment that the sun had already begun to set when Indiana realized that she was going to miss the ferry back to San Francisco. She jumped to her feet and said good-bye, but Ryan, explaining that his van was just outside the park, offered to give her a ride—after all, they lived in the same city. The van had a souped-up engine, oversize wheels, a roof rack, a bicycle rack, and a tasseled pink velvet cushion for Attila that neither Ryan nor his dog had chosen—Ryan’s girlfriend Jennifer Yang had given it to him in a fit of Chinese humor.

    Three days later, unable to get Indiana out of his mind, Ryan turned up at the Holistic Clinic just to see the woman with the bicycle. She was the polar opposite of the usual subjects of his fantasies: he preferred slim Asian women like Jennifer Yang, who besides having perfect features—ivory skin, silken hair, and a bone structure to die for—was also a high-powered banker. Indiana, on the other hand, was a big-boned, curvaceous, good-hearted typical American girl of the type that usually bored him. Yet for some inexplicable reason he found her irresistible. Creamy and delicious was how he described her to Pedro Alarcón, adjectives more appropriate to high-cholesterol food, as his friend pointed out. Shortly after Ryan introduced them, Alarcón commented that Indiana, with her ample diva’s bosom, her blond mane, her sinuous curves and long lashes, had the larger-than-life sexiness of a gangster’s moll from a 1970s movie, but Ryan didn’t know anything about the goddesses who’d graced the silver screen before he was born.

    Ryan was somewhat surprised by the Holistic Clinic—having expected a sort of Buddhist temple, he found himself standing in front of a hideous three-story building the color of guacamole. He didn’t know that it had been built in 1940 and for years attracted tourists who flocked to admire its art-deco style and its stained-glass windows, inspired by Gustav Klimt, but that in the earthquake of 1989 its magnificent facade had collapsed. Two of the windows had been smashed, and the remaining two had since been auctioned off, to be replaced with those tinted glass windows the color of chicken shit favored by button factories and military barracks. Meanwhile, during one of the building’s many misguided renovations, the geometric black-and-white-tiled floor had been replaced with linoleum, since it was easier to clean. The decorative green granite pillars imported from India and the tall lacquered double doors had been sold to a Thai restaurant. All that remained of the clinic’s former glory was the wrought-iron banister on the stairs and two period lamps that, if they had been genuine Lalique, would probably have suffered the same fate as the pillars and the doors. The doorman’s lodge had been bricked up, and twenty feet lopped off the once bright, spacious lobby to build windowless, cavelike offices. But as Ryan arrived that morning, the sun shimmered on the yellow-gold windows, and for a magical half hour the space seemed suspended in amber, the walls dripping caramel and the lobby fleetingly recovering some of its former splendor.

    Ryan went up to Treatment Room 8, prepared to agree to any therapy, however bizarre. He half expected to see Indiana decked out like a priestess; instead she greeted him wearing a white coat and a pair of white clogs, her hair pulled back into a ponytail and tied with a scrunchie. There was nothing of the sorceress about her. She got him to fill out a detailed form, then took him back out into the corridor and had him walk up and down to study his gait. Only then did she tell him to strip down to his boxer shorts and lie on the massage table. Having examined him, she discovered that one of his hips was slightly higher than the other, and his spine had a minor curvature—unsurprising in a man with only one leg. In addition she diagnosed an energy blockage in the sacral chakra, knotted shoulder muscles, tension and stiffness in the neck, and an exaggerated startle reflex. In a word, he was still a Navy SEAL.

    Indiana assured him that some of her therapies would be helpful, but that if he wanted them to be successful, he had to learn to relax. She recommended acupuncture sessions with Yumiko Sato, two doors down, and without waiting for him to agree, picked up the phone and made an appointment for him with a Qigong master in Chinatown, five blocks from the Holistic Clinic. It was only to humor her that Ryan agreed to these therapies, but in both cases he was pleasantly surprised.

    Yumiko Sato, a person of indeterminate age and gender who had close-cropped hair like his own, thick glasses, a dancer’s delicate fingers, and a sepulchral serenity, took his pulse and arrived at the same diagnosis as Indiana. Ryan was advised that acupuncture could be used to treat his physical pain, but it would not heal the wounds in his mind. He flinched, thinking he had misheard. The phrase intrigued him, and some months later, after they had established a bond of trust, he asked Yumiko what she had meant. Yumiko Sato said simply that only fools have no mental wounds.

    Ryan’s Qigong lessons with Master Xai—who was originally from Laos and had a beatific face and the belly of a Laughing Buddha—were a revelation: the perfect combination of balance, breathing, movement, and meditation. It was the ideal exercise for body and mind, and Ryan quickly incorporated it into his daily routine.

    Indiana didn’t manage to cure the spasms within three weeks as promised, but Ryan lied so he could take her out and pay for dinner, since by then he’d realized that financially she was bordering on poverty. The bustling yet intimate restaurant, the French-influenced Vietnamese food, and the bottle of Flowers pinot noir all played a part in cementing a friendship that in time Ryan would come to think of as his greatest treasure. He had lived his life among men. The fifteen Navy SEALs he’d trained with when he was twenty were his true family; like him they were inured to rigorous physical exertion, to the terror and exhilaration of war, to the tedium of hours spent idle. Some of his comrades, he had not seen in years, others he had seen only a few months earlier, but he kept in touch with them all; they would always be his brothers.

    Before he lost his left leg, the navy vet’s relationships with women had been uncomplicated: sexual, sporadic, and so brief that the features of these women blurred into a single face that looked not unlike Jennifer Yang’s. They were usually just flings, and when from time to time he did fall for someone, the relationship never lasted. His life—constantly on the move, constantly fighting to the death—did not lend itself to emotional attachments, much less to marriage and children. He fought a constant war against his enemies, some real, others imaginary; this was how he had spent his youth.

    In civilian life Ryan was awkward, a fish out of water. He found it difficult to make small talk, and his long silences sometimes seemed insulting to people who didn’t know him well. The fact that San Francisco was the center of a thriving gay community meant it was teeming with beautiful, available, successful women very different from the girls Ryan was used to encountering in dive bars or hanging around the barracks. In the right light, Ryan could easily pass for handsome, and his disability—aside from giving him the martyred air of a man who has suffered for his country—offered a good excuse to strike up a conversation. He was never short of offers, but when he was with the sort of intelligent woman he found attractive, he worried so much about making a good impression that he ended up boring them. No California woman would rather spend the evening listening to war stories, however heroic, than go clubbing—no one, that is, except Jennifer Yang, who had inherited not only the infinite patience of her ancestors in the Celestial Empire but also the ability to pretend she was listening when actually she was thinking about something else. Yet from the very first time they met among the sequoias in Samuel P. Taylor State Park, Ryan had felt comfortable with Indiana Jackson. A few weeks later, at the Vietnamese restaurant, he realized he didn’t need to rack his brains for things to talk about; half a glass of wine was all it took to loosen Indiana’s tongue. The time flew by, and when he checked his watch, Ryan saw it was past midnight and the only other people in the restaurant were two Mexican waiters clearing tables with the disgruntled air of men who had finished their shift and were anxious to get home. It was on that night, three years ago, that Ryan and Indiana had become firm friends.

    For all his initial skepticism, after three or four months the ex-soldier was forced to admit that Indiana was not just some crazy New Age hippie; she genuinely had the gift of healing. Her therapies relaxed him; he slept more soundly, and the cramps and spasms had all but disappeared. But the most wonderful thing about their sessions together was the peace they brought him: her hands radiated affection, and her sympathetic presence stilled the voices from his past.

    As for Indiana, she came to rely on this strong, silent friend, who kept her fit by forcing her to jog the endless paths and forest trails in the San Francisco area, and bailed her out when she had financial problems and couldn’t bring herself to approach her father. They got along well, and though the words were never spoken, she sensed that their friendship might have blossomed into a passionate affair if she wasn’t still hung up on her elusive lover Alan, and Ryan wasn’t so determined to push away love in atonement for his sins.

    The summer her mother met Ryan Miller, Amanda Martín had been fourteen, though she could have passed for ten. She was a skinny, gawky girl with thick glasses and a retainer who hid from the unbearable noise and glare of the world behind her mop of hair or the hood of her sweatshirt; she looked so unlike her mother that people often asked if she was adopted. From the first, Ryan treated Amanda with the exaggerated courtesy of a Japanese gentleman. He made no effort to help her during their long bike ride to Los Angeles, although, being an experienced triathlete, he had helped her to train and prepare for the trip, something that won him the girl’s trust.

    One Friday morning at seven, all three of them—Indiana, Amanda, and Ryan—set off from San Francisco with two thousand other keen cyclists wearing red AIDS awareness ribbons, escorted by a procession of cars and trucks filled with volunteers transporting tents and provisions. They arrived in Los Angeles the following Friday, their butts red-raw, their legs stiff, and their minds as free of thoughts as newborn babes. For seven days they had pedaled up hills and along highways, through stretches of beautiful countryside and others of hellish traffic. To Ryan—for whom a daily fifteen-hour bike ride was a breeze—the ride was effortless, but to mother and daughter it felt like a century of agonizing effort, and they only got to the finish line because Ryan was there, goading them like a drill sergeant whenever they flagged and recharging their energy with electrolyte drinks and energy bars.

    Every night, like an exhausted flock of migrating birds, the two thousand cyclists descended on the makeshift campsites erected by the volunteers along the route, wolfed down five thousand calories, checked their bicycles, showered in trailers, and rubbed their calves and thighs with soothing ointment. Before they went to sleep, Ryan applied hot compresses to Indiana and Amanda and gave them little pep talks about the benefits of exercise and fresh air.

    What has any of this got to do with AIDS? asked Indiana on the third day, having cycled for ten hours, weeping from sheer exhaustion and for all the woes in her life. What do I know? was Ryan’s honest answer. Ask your daughter.

    The ride may have made only a modest contribution to the fight against AIDS, but it cemented the budding friendship between Ryan and Indiana, while for Amanda it led to something impossible: a new friend. This girl, who looked set to become a hermit, had precisely three friends in the world: her grandfather, Blake Jackson; Bradley, her future boyfriend; and now Ryan Miller, the Navy SEAL. The kids she played Ripper with didn’t fall into the same category; she only knew them within the context of the game, and their relationship was entirely centered around crime.

    Tuesday, 3

    Amanda’s godmother, Celeste Roko, the most famous astrologer in California, made her bloodbath prediction the last day of September 2011. Her daily show aired early, before the morning weather forecast, and repeated after the evening news. At fiftysomething, thanks to a little nip and tuck, Roko looked good for her age. Charming on screen and a dragon in person, she was considered beautiful and elegant by her many admirers. She looked like Eva Perón with a few extra pounds. The set for her TV show featured a blown-up photo of the Golden Gate Bridge behind a fake picture window and a huge model of the solar system, with planets that could light up and be moved by remote control.

    Psychics, astrologers, and other practitioners of the mysterious arts tend to make their predictions on New Year’s Eve, but Madame Roko could not bring herself to wait three months before warning the citizens of San Francisco of the horrors that lay in store for them. Her prophecy was of such magnitude that it captured the public imagination, went viral on the Internet. Her pronouncement provoked scathing editorials in the local press and hysterical headlines in the tabloids, speculating about terrible atrocities at San Quentin State Prison, gang warfare between blacks and Latinos, and an apocalyptic earthquake along the San Andreas Fault. But Celeste Roko, who exuded an air of infallibility thanks to a former career as a Jungian analyst and an impressive number of accurate predictions, was adamant that her vision concerned murders. This provoked a collective sigh of relief among devotees of astrology, since it was the least dreadful of the calamities they had feared. In northern California, the chance of being murdered was one in twenty thousand; it was, everyone believed, a crime that happened to other people.

    It was on the day of this prediction that Amanda and her grandfather finally decided to challenge the power of Celeste Roko. They were sick and tired of the influence Amanda’s godmother wielded over the family by pretending that she could foretell the future. Madame Roko was a temperamental woman with the unshakable belief in herself common to those who receive direct messages from the universe or from God. She never managed to sway Blake Jackson, who would have no truck with astrology, but Indiana always consulted Celeste before making important decisions, allowing her life to be guided by the dictates of her horoscope. All too often Celeste Roko’s astrological readings thwarted Amanda’s best-laid plans. When she was younger, for example, the planets had deemed it an inauspicious moment to buy a skateboard but a propitious time to take up ballet—which left Amanda in a pink tutu, sobbing with humiliation.

    When she turned thirteen, Amanda discovered that her godmother was not in fact infallible. The planets had apparently decided that Amanda should go to a public high school, but Encarnación Martín, her formidable paternal grandmother, insisted she attend a Catholic boarding school. For once Amanda sided with Celeste, since a co-ed school seemed slightly less terrifying than being taught by nuns. But Doña Encarnación triumphed over Celeste Roko—by producing a check for the tuition fees. Little did she suspect that the nuns would turn out to be feminists in pants who challenged the pope, and used science class to demonstrate the correct use of a condom with the aid of a banana.

    Encouraged by the skepticism of her grandfather, who rarely dared to directly challenge Celeste, Amanda questioned the relationship between the heavenly bodies and the fates of human beings; to her, astrology seemed as much mumbo-jumbo as her mother’s white magic. Celeste’s most recent prognostication offered grandfather and granddaughter a perfect opportunity to refute the predictive powers of the stars. It is one thing to announce that the coming week is a favorable one for letter-writing, quite another to predict a bloodbath in San Francisco. That’s not something that happens every day.

    When Amanda, her grandfather, and her online buddies transformed Ripper from a game into a criminal investigation, they could never have imagined what they were getting themselves into. Precisely eleven days after Celeste Roko’s pronouncement, Ed Staton was murdered. This might have been considered a coincidence, but given the unusual nature of the crime—the baseball bat—Amanda began to put together a case file using information published in the papers, what little she managed to wheedle out of her father, who was conducting the investigation, and whatever her grandfather could dig up.

    Blake Jackson was a pharmacist by profession, a book lover, and a frustrated writer until he finally took the opportunity to chronicle the tumultuous events predicted by Celeste Roko. In his novel, he described his granddaughter Amanda as idiosyncratic of appearance, timorous of character, but magnificent of mind—his baroque use of language distinguishing him from his peers. His account of these fateful events would end up being much longer than he expected, even though—excepting a few flashbacks—it spanned a period of only three months. The critics were vicious, dismissing his work as magical realism—a literary style deemed passé—but no one could prove he had distorted the events to make them seem supernatural, since the San Francisco Police Department and the daily newspapers documented them.

    In January 2012, Amanda Martín was sixteen and a high school senior. As an only child, Amanda had been dreadfully spoiled, but her grandfather was convinced that when she graduated from high school and went out into the world that would sort itself out. She was vegetarian now only because she didn’t have to cook for herself; when she was forced to do so, she would be less persnickety about her diet. From an early age Amanda had been a passionate reader, with all the dangers such a pastime entails. Although the San Francisco murders would have been committed in any case, Amanda would not have been involved if an obsession with Scandinavian crime novels had not developed into a morbid interest in evil in general and premeditated murder in particular. Though her grandfather was no advocate of censorship, it worried him that Amanda was reading books like this at fourteen. His granddaughter put him in his place by reminding him that he was reading them too, so all Blake Jackson could do was give her a stern warning about their content—which of course made her all the more curious. The fact that Amanda’s father was deputy chief of the homicide detail in San Francisco’s Personal Crimes Division fueled her obsession; through him she discovered how much evil there was in this idyllic city, which could seem immune to it. But if heinous crimes happened in enlightened countries like Sweden and Norway, there was no point in expecting things to be different in San Francisco—a city founded by rapacious prospectors, polygamous preachers, and women of easy virtue, all lured by the gold rush of the mid-nineteenth century.

    Amanda went to an all-girls boarding school—one of a handful that still remained since America had opted for the muddle of mixed education—at which she had somehow survived for four years by managing to be invisible to her classmates, although not to the teachers and the few nuns who still worked there. She had an excellent grade-point average, although the sainted sisters

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