In Miss Hewitt Investigates the Return of the Ripper by Linda Stephenson, upper class member Isabelle Hewitt runs a detective agency in 1915 London in the midst of World War I. With her manservant Clarke, the man she loves, in the Medical Corp, Isabelle works to keep busy to distract herself. One day Mrs. Styles, head of the Women’s Emergency Corp, comes to Isabelle to ask her to investigate something for her. Two nights before, her Corp member Mary Haynes was murdered in a brutal manner, and a night later, member Enid Wells suffered a similar fate. Mrs. Styles suspects that Jack the Ripper has come out of retirement and wants Isabelle to locate the murderer. With the help of her employees, Isabelle interviews witnesses and searches for the truth.
Miss Hewitt Investigates the Return of the Ripper is a short audiobook (2 hours, 19 minutes), but it packs plenty of plot and character development into the short piece. The storyline has real interest to it, with a creative plot and an interesting conclusion. I enjoyed the characters of Isabelle and her new assistant, Hattie Peach. But I would have liked more about the historical era, which doesn’t have a lot of depictions.
Julia Eve performs the audio edition of this book, taking us in time travel back to 1915 England. With careful diction, Eve modulates between the accents of the different classes and uses clearly defined voices for each of the characters. Her performance lives up to the excitement of the book, and I look forward to hearing her narrate the other two books in this trilogy.
I appreciated listening to Miss Hewitt Investigates the Return of the Ripper. It was a fairly light, enjoyable listen with creative elements to it. If it had just had more historical detail, I would have especially liked it, but even without that, I give the book five stars.
Disclaimer: I received this book for free for review purposes, but that in no way had any influence on the content of my review.
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