Title: The Devil’s Workshop
Author: Alex Grecian
Publication: April 7, 2015
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Genre: Historic Thriller
Pages: 400

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SYNOPSIS: (From Goodreads)

Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad faces the most shocking case of its existence, in the extraordinary new historical thriller from the author of the acclaimed national bestsellers The Yard and The Black Country.

London, 1890. A small group of the city’s elite, fed up with the murder rate, have made it their business to capture violent criminals and mete out their own terrible brand of retribution. Now they are taking it a step further: They have arranged for four murderers to escape from prison, and into the group’s hands.

But the plan goes wrong. The killers elude them, and now it is up to Walter Day, Nevil Hammersmith, and the rest of Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad to hunt the convicts down before they can resume their bloody spree. But the Murder Squad may already be too late. The killers have retribution in mind, and one of them is heading straight toward a member of the Murder Squad, and his family.

And that isn’t even the worst of it. During the escape, one of the killers has stumbled upon the location of another notorious murderer, one thought gone for good, but who is now prepared to join forces with them.

And Saucy Jack has learned some new tricks while he’s been away.

REVIEW:

Well, another book picked and off my shelf. I will say that I picked this book at my hometown used book store purely for the A: back cover blurb about Jack the Ripper and B: the title of the book, because let’s be honest the name Devil’s Workshop rather screams read me.  At least in does in my world.  The fact that its a Historical Fiction helps and about Jack the Ripper because I rather like learning new things about that portion of history in London.  While I was excited to read it with the less than stellar cover art had me withholding energy put into the actual reading of the book.  

Inspector Day is struggling.  His wife is pregnant.  As a result she sleeps fitfully, thrashing, arms flying and elbows being thrown.  He takes a walk along the Thames to ease his mind.  Wondering how he will be as a father.  His own dad wasn’t exactly an amazing model for him to learn from.  His walking and pondering is drawn to a close when he comes back to his house and finds a runner from the Scotland Yard standing on his step and his wife in the doorway.  The runner tells him there has been a train accident causing a breakout from the prison and its all hands on deck to find the missing prisoners.  The case that unfolds in front of Inspector Day is one for the books.  First of all, this book does touch on Jack the Ripper but it mainly focused on Inspector Day.  Full disclosure as well, this is the third book in a series based on Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad.  However, I will say I have not read the other books in the series and was able to follow along just fine without having read those first. 

This book, while I really didn’t have much hope for it to be a ring dinger,  it actually kept me on the edge of my seat.  When I read it I actually binged large sections of it at a time so in reality it didn’t take me that long to read it.  The twists that this author threw into the storyline actually had me gasping.  Maybe, other people saw them coming since it’s the third book but for me it was a total left field twist.  I really enjoyed the character growth that I saw with Day.  He learned that he would be a good father.  He had everything he ever needed to do so.  I think he also learned that you can’t always trust even the closest of friends, even one that you look up to and was your mentor.  I mean don’t not because of this one book but I like to think that Day learned that.  I really wanted the vigilante group that was torturing prisoners to be a real group. A quick google search told me in fact that it was a bunch of bologna. It did kind of touch on what Jack the Ripper did to his victims and how he cut them open and removed their organs. I would pass this on to my mom to read but some of it may be too graphic and it might not be British Mystery Cozy enough for her.  I am glad that I read this book.  Will I be reading the rest of the books in this series? More than likely no but that’s ok every series does not need to be read to completion.  I am thrilled to get it off my shelf!!