Now You See Me by S.J. Bolton

Now You See Me by S.J. Bolton is a fantastic police procedural mystery.  I could not put it down and thoroughly enjoyed it.

The novel opens in present day London when a young detective, Lacey Flint, finds a woman, who has just been stabbed, leaning on her car in a parking lot.  Within hours, a Jack the Ripper styled letter appears and names Lacey.  The murderer is not merely rehashing the Ripper's killings; the murderer picks and chooses key elements of Ripper's rampages to "update" Ripper's murderous spree.  Lacey, who has a keen interest in Jack the Ripper and serial murderers, becomes central to the investigation.  She must work with the team, which is made more difficult because she is forced to work with a male colleague in the special operations branch of the force who is both attracted to and mistrustful of her.  As bodies and Ripper parallels pile up, the pressure on the police to solve the mystery becomes extreme.

Bolton beautifully develops her characters, making them multidimensional.  The writing is crisp and thoughtful.  The plot is interesting and carefully calibrated.  The modern ties to the history of Jack the Ripper turned a very good book into a great one.

This was the first book by Bolton that I have read.  If you like mysteries and can tolerate the violence (if you are fine with Stieg Larsson, you'll be fine with this), you'll love this one.