Review by dairaglynn - Capturing the Devil

dairaglynn 's review for:

Capturing the Devil by Kerri Maniscalco

4.25

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

For the final review of the series I’m going to give both the book review and the full series review.

Book:
As much as I liked this one, it certainly wasn’t my favorite in the series. The first half felt very slow, with it being mostly focused AR and Thomas’s relationship. Don’t get me wrong, it was nice to see development and growth of the characters outside of the forensic lab, but the whole reason they went to New York was to help investigate a murder, and we didn’t get a lot of that.

Also, it seemed like the murder was Jack the Ripper? But Jack was on the boat with them from England to the US, so not really sure how he committed the murders before he was even in the country? Or was there a different murderer in NY and they just never closed that case?

. That felt very strange to me, and almost like a forgotten point from the author?

I know Thomas had a strained relationship with his father, and it clearly had its issues, but

the fact that he would blackmail both of his kids? Basically ruin his entire family name if Thomas didn’t marry the woman of his choice? Idk that seemed off. I suppose the author wanted to wait for them to get married until the end for a HEA, but idk, if they had been married mid-book I feel like it wouldn’t have really changed the story.

I did love the research that went into this book and

H.H. Holmes being the murderer.

It was obvious who it would be if you know anything about the history of the case, but just how the story was told once they made it to Chicago was amazing.

It was also fun to see that accusation that Holmes could have also been Jack the Ripper, I thought that was really creative.

A couple of potential plot holes that really bothered me in those final chapters..

1. What happened to the girl that was leading AR to her room in the hotel? She clearly saw AR essentially pass out from the toxins and then what? She vanished? Did she see Holmes take her to the basement? Did she just say oh well and leave her in the hall? Did Holmes take both of them and kill the other girl while AR was on the brink of death?? Just seems very strange that if she saw Holmes take AR that she would say nothing? 2. I know the real “castle” didn’t survive, but the way it was written made it seem like the entire building crumbled? Maybe I read that wrong, but if thats the case and it really did take up an entire city block, I’m guessing a significant number of people would have been injured or killed, and that didn’t seem like that case reading that portion of that book.

Full series:
Okay the one big thing that really bugged me, why were AR and Thomas investigating the murders? I understand their attachment to cases given their forensic positions, but from my knowledge, it’s not like they would be actively investigating, right? They would perform the autopsy and then give that knowledge to the police, or whoever was actually leading the case. Were they just overzealous? Were investigations run differently in the 1800s? Also, while Thomas did help in the forensic aspect, I felt his talents were more aimed at reading people and investigating. It almost would have seemed better if Thomas was apprenticing with Scotland Yard to solve the murders, and then him and AR carried on as a team. I guess he might not have been involved in the other cases since it was AR’s uncle that always pulled Thomas along.. but the fact they were so involved in the actual investigation and not just the autopsies felt weird.

Overall, I loved this series, it was well written and the characters were so fun! There were a few plot points that really bugged me, but nothing that was so bad it made me stop reading. I would still recommend this series to others, and I really enjoyed all the fictionalized retellings of famous historical murderers.

Content Warnings