Title: The Ripper is You
Author: Alvaro Zinos-Amaro
In: The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper Stories (Maxim Jakubowski)
Rating Out of 5: 3 (On the fence about this one)
My Bookshelves: Crime, Mental health
Dates read: 26th December 2019
Pace: Slow
Format: Short story
Publisher: Robinson
Year: 2015
5th sentence, 74th page: Polly appears at 2.22 a.m., right on schedule, and clearly the worse for wear.
Each victim is a unique experience. And a unique show of his psychosis.
I’m really not sure of this short story. I loved the premise, but actually reading it… I just couldn’t get involved in the storyline. Having said that, something about the writing actually makes you feel like you’re in the story. Somehow immersed into the reality. Which is completely the point. And it’s got something to do with the weird cadence in which the story is actually written. It’s a very different pacing, as I said though… it’s a pacing that didn’t quite draw me in as much as I would have liked.
This is incredibly dark and intense. And it focuses in tightly on the murders in a way that I haven’t experienced before. Yet, the part about this pinpoint lighting that I enjoyed the most was the beginning of each section. There is a brief psychological analysis of what each of these murders represents at the beginning. One that makes you view what was done to each body in a different light. Or at least, that’s how it felt for me.
There’s a twist at the end of this short story. One that I’m not really convinced I was able to totally understand. I think I probably need to read this tale when I’m a little bit alert. But I love twists, so I appreciated it’s presence. Even if I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on…
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