You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
Ripper grabbed me from the start with this line "Mom is still alive, but she's going to be murdered at midnight on Good Friday.". Racing through its last pages an earthquake couldn't dislodge me from my seat. An entertaining good read with a game worked into the plot.
Looks like I'm going to be the rogue reader here. I really liked Ripper and here's why.
Allende does characters studies well and those in Ripper were solid if a bit quirky. I liked them, wanted to know them and cared about what happened to them. I particularly liked the main character, Amanda. Like Flavia de Luce series by Alan Bradley I found Amanda a smart thinker and fun. Amanda's older but quite wise and her team of sleuths are interesting associates. Her grandfather describes Amanda as "idiosyncratic of appearance, timorous of character, but magnificent of mind". Agreed.
Second most liked character is the Purebred Belgian Malinois, Attila, "smarter and stronger than German Shepherds, and they keep their back straight, so they don't suffer hip problems." A former war dog, you'd not find a more loyal companion. He was rescued by a former navy seal, discharged honorably after he lost his leg in combat. "Attila had been trained to defend and attack, to sniff out mines and terrorists, ward off enemies, parachute, swim through icy waters, and a variety of things that were not much use in civilian life." Long after Ryan, the seal, had been discharged, Attila was severely injured by a bomb, expected not to survive but not left behind as in battle "you never leave a fallen comrade behind" Now eight years old, the murders gave him a new purpose in life.
Allende is a storyteller. There are a few skips in plot and some stumbles but all in all I enjoyed the story.
Allende's stories always include some magic realism and there's enough of this here for me.
One reviewer turned up his nose claiming Ripper could only satisfy an undemanding reader. Guilty as charged. Most fiction I read fits this bill. If I want demanding I'll find it somewhere else. I read primarily for my own entertainment, not to make it work.
I loved the idea of a group of teens playing a role-playing game that soon becomes a race to find a modern day ripper let loose on San Francisco. I wanted to play and hope I'm invited if there is another book.
Translated from Spanish, Ripper originally was to be a collaborative effort of Allende and her husband, Willie Gordon, but that was seen as a fast road to divorce.
My sincere thanks to Harper Collins for allowing me to read this before it's publication date of January 28, 2014
Looks like I'm going to be the rogue reader here. I really liked Ripper and here's why.
Allende does characters studies well and those in Ripper were solid if a bit quirky. I liked them, wanted to know them and cared about what happened to them. I particularly liked the main character, Amanda. Like Flavia de Luce series by Alan Bradley I found Amanda a smart thinker and fun. Amanda's older but quite wise and her team of sleuths are interesting associates. Her grandfather describes Amanda as "idiosyncratic of appearance, timorous of character, but magnificent of mind". Agreed.
Second most liked character is the Purebred Belgian Malinois, Attila, "smarter and stronger than German Shepherds, and they keep their back straight, so they don't suffer hip problems." A former war dog, you'd not find a more loyal companion. He was rescued by a former navy seal, discharged honorably after he lost his leg in combat. "Attila had been trained to defend and attack, to sniff out mines and terrorists, ward off enemies, parachute, swim through icy waters, and a variety of things that were not much use in civilian life." Long after Ryan, the seal, had been discharged, Attila was severely injured by a bomb, expected not to survive but not left behind as in battle "you never leave a fallen comrade behind" Now eight years old, the murders gave him a new purpose in life.
Allende is a storyteller. There are a few skips in plot and some stumbles but all in all I enjoyed the story.
Allende's stories always include some magic realism and there's enough of this here for me.
One reviewer turned up his nose claiming Ripper could only satisfy an undemanding reader. Guilty as charged. Most fiction I read fits this bill. If I want demanding I'll find it somewhere else. I read primarily for my own entertainment, not to make it work.
I loved the idea of a group of teens playing a role-playing game that soon becomes a race to find a modern day ripper let loose on San Francisco. I wanted to play and hope I'm invited if there is another book.
Translated from Spanish, Ripper originally was to be a collaborative effort of Allende and her husband, Willie Gordon, but that was seen as a fast road to divorce.
My sincere thanks to Harper Collins for allowing me to read this before it's publication date of January 28, 2014