THE RIPPER'S SHADOW

The year is 1888 and Jack the Ripper has begun his reign of terror. Miss Sarah Bain, a photographer in Whitechapel, is an independent woman with dark secrets. In the privacy of her studio, she supplements her meager income by taking illicit "boudoir photographs" of the town's local ladies of the night. But when two of her models are found gruesomely murdered within weeks of one another, Sarah begins to suspect it's more than mere coincidence.

Teamed with a motley crew of friends--including a street urchin, a gay aristocrat, a Jewish butcher and his wife, and a beautiful young actress--Sarah delves into the crime of the century. But just as she starts unlocking the Ripper's secrets, she catches the attention of the local police, who believe she knows more than she's revealing, as well as from the Ripper himself, now bent on silencing her and her friends for good. Caught in the crosshairs of a ruthless killer, Sarah races through Whitechapel's darkest alleys to find the truth...until she makes a shocking discovery that challenges everything she thought she knew about the case. Intelligent and utterly engrossing, Laura Joh Rowland's Victorian mystery THE RIPPER'S SHADOW will keep its reader up late into the night. Laura Joh Rowland is the bestselling author of the samurai detective Sano Ichiro mystery series set in 17th c. Japan as well as the historical suspense series starring Charlotte Bronte. Her work has been published in 21 countries, nominated for the Anthony Award, the Hammett Prize, and the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, won RT Magazine's Reader's Choice Award, and been included in the Wall Street Journal's list of the five best historical mystery novels. Laura holds a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Michigan. She is a former aerospace scientist, a painter, and a cartoonist.