Sherlock Holmes in New York: The Adventure of the New York Ripper

by Philip J. Carraher

Book Overview

Terror is walking the streets of 1893 New York City at night, taking the lives of women in a horrible fashion reminiscent of the heinous murders of Jack the Ripper in London five years earlier. A... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0741427427
• ISBN13: 9780741427427
• Release Date: January 2013
• Publisher: Infinity Publishing (PA)
• Length: 212 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A Mystery for you to Unravel

Adding to the canon of Holmes vs. the Ripper, Philip J. Carraher crafts an intriguing tale that brings both fiend and master detective (using the alias of Simon Hawkes) to New York City. But SH purist be warned, Mr. Carraher take on Holmes and Watson differs from ACD's creation, but still enjoyable none the less. If you are a coinsurer of the very best in mystery fiction like The Crime Doctor, Sherlock Holmes : The Complete Novels and Stories (Bantam Classic) Volume I, or Raymond Chandler: Stories and Early Novels: Pulp Stories / The Big Sleep / Farewell, My Lovely / The High Window (Library of America), then I am certain that this thrilling novel will provided you with quite a few lively nights of suspenseful reading.

Yes! You will like this book.

I will be succinct in this review. If you ever wanted to see Holmes in a different setting, being Holmes around a different circle of acquaintenances, living in a different city, different country, different living quarters, working with a different, yet, oft times clueless police department, but STILL solving perplexing crimes...then the ALIAS SIMON HAWKES (The Adventure of the Dead Rabbit Society, The Adventure of the New York Ripper, and Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in New York) series is for you! These three works are excellent and I suggest that every Sherlock Holmes fan buy and read all three!

Great Job

I read the other reviews when I got here and was suprised someone said there were a lot of typos in this book. I didn't see any. The author does put in a lot of excerpts from "Watson's notebook" and when he does this he (correctly) uses the English spelling (and not the American) for some words. Maybe someone would misinterpret those as typos. In any case I thought this book was great. Real good mystery (mysteries actually) and a perfectly fine Holmes characterization. (I know some "purists" think only Sir Arthur can do it right, but come on, Doyle is not going to write any more Holmes stories.)The mystery is solved in the Holmesian manner, i.e., through observation and deduction and this is the true requirement for a Sherlock book in my opinion. The depiction of 19th century New York is good too. And the author has Holmes be the first "behaviorial forensics" person when he, Holmes, does a great analysis (through deduction) of the reasons Jack the Ripper did some of the things he did. All around great job.

Unusual Holmes story and very good.

Who would have guessed that it would take Sherlock Holmes on exile in New York City to discover and solve the Jack the Ripper cases in London. This is one of those stories that tries to identify where Holmes was during the three years he was believed to be dead. He is in New York under the name of Simon Hawkes where from time to time he helps the police. It is not the first such story by Philip J. Carraher, and it makes me want to read his earlier ones. He captures the spirt of Holmes and even brings in Watson who from timew to time has notes added to the manuscript. This story was supposedly related to him by the great detective years later. I have never really been interested in the Jack the Ripper cases, though I have been to London and seen the museum. The author has done a good job of covering them and similar ones that Holmes tries to solve in New York. Very well done.

A Blend of History and Fiction

The year is 1893. "The Adventure of the New York Ripper" begins with the strangulation and mutilation of Rhyming Child, a prostitute who recites children's poems in bars for drinks. Subsequently another prostitute is murdered in an alley and similarly mutilated and Cullen, a city detective, goes to Simon Hawkes (Sherlock Holmes) seeking assistance in finding the killer. He does so against his superior's orders as the chief of detectives, Thomas Byrnes, does not want attention drawn to the series of murders. He wants to avoid publicity for two reasons, first, he doesn't want a repeat of the kind of atmosphere surrounding the "Jack the Ripper" murders in London in which citizens condemned the local police and Scotland Yard for failing to stop the killer, and two, he doesn't want his own previous arrest of a similar "Ripper" murderer two years earlier to be now questioned. Byrnes, it turns out, had boasted in 1888, during the London killing spree by Jack the Ripper, that he would easily capture the killer. A boast remembered by the press when in 1891, a prostitute named Carrie Brown was killed and butchered in the manner of Jack the Ripper. Many thought that the London Ripper had come to New York precisely because of Byrnes boasting that he could catch him and the pressure on the police department and Byrnes at the time was great. Byrnes did arrest someone for Carrie Brown's murder, thus taking pressure off himself, but many thought that he'd captured the wrong man. Byrnes has a reputation for being a great detective and he does not want that reputation tarnished. Now in 1893, similar murders to that of Carrie Brown are occurring. Byrnes does not want his previous capture of the mutilator of Brown questioned, and doesn't want again the intense public pressure to capture such a killer to be brought down upon him, so he and his detectives are doing their best to keep the murders out of the news. Secrecy is the order of the day and Cullen is risking his job in coming to Simon Hawkes for help. "Sherlock Holmes in New York: The Adventure of the New York Ripper" is a novel that combines both fact and fiction. The two are blended so neatly that, unless one is aware of the history regarding Jack the Ripper, it is hard at times to tell where fiction begins and history ends and vice versa. I am somewhat familiar with the Jack the Ripper history and so I can say that when Cullen meets with Hawkes and states the 1891 facts surrounding the murder of Carrie Brown, he is being historically accurate. Carrie Brown was a real person and was killed as stated, and it was believed by some that her murderer was indeed the London Jack the Ripper. Thomas Byrnes was the head of the New York City Police Department at the time and did make the boast, as stated in the novel, that he could have easily captured Jack the Ripper if he was in London during the time of the murders. With the killing of another prostitute, Byrnes relents and allows Simon to be called into the ca