Ripper: A Novel
*Starred Review* In her last novel, Maya’s Notebook (2013), Allende illuminated a criminal underworld. Now she nimbly joins her detective novelist husband, William C. Gordon, in writing crime fiction. Given her signature combination of bewitching imagination and social gravitas, Allende creates a compassionate and gripping mystery stoked by the paradoxes of family and community and the consequences of abuse. Super-smart high-school senior Amanda Martín is obsessed with an Internet role-playing game, Ripper (as in Jack), and oversees a group comprising four other brilliant misfit teens from around the world as well as her grandfather, who raised her after her very young parents divorced. Amanda’s father, Bob, is a deputy chief of homicide in the San Francisco police department. Her mother, Indiana, is a healer too kind for her own good who is romantically entangled with a former navy SEAL and a wealthy dilettante. As Amanda and her cyber-brigade investigate a series of ritualistic murders no one else believes are connected, Allende richly portrays a range of intriguing characters, from Ayani, a famous Ethiopian model and women’s rights activist, to Attila, a heroic war dog. Sensitive to inequality, injustice, and psychological complexity and touching on everything from aromatherapy to illegal immigrants to PTSD, Allende’s tightly plotted tale of crimes obvious and masked is sharply perceptive, utterly charming, and intensely suspenseful.HIGH-DEMAND BACK STORY: Best-selling Allende’s leap into crime fiction will be energetically promoted with a national author tour and a publicity blitz directed at both her fans and mystery enthusiasts. --Donna Seaman