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Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson Hardcover – Deckle Edge, April 28, 2009

by Lyndsay Faye (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 974 ratings
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In Dust and Shadow Sherlock Holmes hunts down Jack the Ripper with impeccably accurate historical detail, rooting the Whitechapel investigation in the fledgling days of tabloid journalism and clinical psychology. This astonishing debut explores the terrifying prospect of hunting down one of the world's first serial killers without the advantage of modern forensics or profiling. Sherlock's desire to stop the killer who is terrifying the East End of London is unwavering from the start, and in an effort to do so he hires an "unfortuate" known as Mary Ann Monk, the friend of a fellow streetwalker who was one of the Ripper's earliest victims. However, when Holmes himself is wounded in Whitechapel attempting to catch the villain, and a series of articles in the popular press question his role in the crimes, he must use all his resources in a desperate race to find the man known as "The Knife" before it is too late. Penned as a pastiche by the loyal and courageous Dr. Watson, Dust and Shadow
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  1. Print length
    336 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Simon & Schuster
  4. Publication date
    April 28, 2009
  5. Dimensions
    6.5 x 1.25 x 9.75 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1416583300
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1416583301
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Following in the footsteps of such crime writers as Ellery Queen and Michael Dibdin, Faye pits Sherlock Holmes against Jack the Ripper in her impressive if flawed debut. In the autumn of 1888, the savage slaughter of two prostitutes in London's East End piques Holmes's curiosity. Inspector Lestrade, no fool in Faye's rendering, calls on the unconventional sleuth for help. As the killer continues to claim more victims, the Baker Street duo spare no effort to bring the Ripper to justice. Meanwhile, a disreputable journalist accuses Holmes of being the Ripper. The author uses a convincing Watsonian voice to present versions of Holmes and his chronicler faithful to the originals. While the paucity of suspects makes guessing the killer's identity too easy and the motive for the crimes is less than convincing, Sherlockians will hope to see further pastiches of this quality from Faye. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

It has been more than 120 years since his last murder, so perhaps we should allow Jack the Ripper to rest in peace. Not a chance! The slashing murders and mutilations committed by perhaps history’s most notorious serial killer terrified the impoverished residents of the Whitechapel area of London’s East End in 1888. Because the killer was never caught, who better to track him down than the greatest Victorian-era sleuth, Sherlock Holmes? Faye narrates the investigation through the supposed memoir of Holmes’ constant companion, Dr. Watson. Faye displays a superb grasp of the known facts about the murders, and she effectively captures the vibrancy and squalor of the underclass in late-nineteenth-century London. Although her effort to mimic Conan Doyle’s literary style seems a bit strained, she knows how to unfold a tale of murder and mystery. Holmes, typically brilliant and relentless, unpeels layer after layer of confusion and deceit as the dramatic tension builds and bursts. Mystery aficionados, especially those with an interest in the Ripper murders, will find this work a worthy revisiting of the case. --Jay Freeman

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster; First Edition (April 28, 2009)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1416583300
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1416583301
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.2 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.25 x 9.75 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 974 ratings

About the author

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Lyndsay Faye

Lyndsay Faye

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Lyndsay Faye moved to Manhattan in 2005 to audition for theatre work; she found her days more open when the powers that be elected to knock her day-job restaurant down with bulldozers. Her first novel Dust and Shadow: an Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H Watson is a tribute to the aloof genius and his good-hearted friend whose exploits she has loved since childhood. Faye's love of her adopted city led her to research the origins of the New York City Police Department, the inception of which exactly coincided with the start of the Irish Potato Famine. The Gods of Gotham, Seven for a Secret, and The Fatal Flame follow ex-bartender Timothy Wilde as he navigates the rapids of his violently turbulent city, his no less chaotic elder brother Valentine Wilde, and the perils of learning police work in a riotous and racially divided political landscape. The first book of the trilogy was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best Novel and has been published in 14 languages. Her lasting affection for Jane Eyre led her to re-imagine the heroine as a gutsy, heroic serial killer in Jane Steele.

After growing up in the Pacific Northwest, Lyndsay worked as a professional actress throughout the Bay Area for several years, nearly always in a corset, and if not a corset then at the very least heels and lined stockings. As her roles ranged from Scrooge's lost fiancée in A Christmas Carol to Lavinia DuPlessy in Andrew Lippa's world premiere of A Little Princess, whalebone prevented her from drawing a natural breath for a number of years. She is a soprano with a high pop belt, if it interests you. Her performances were generally reviewed well, with adjectives ranging from "soaring" and "delightful" to "sausage-curled."

Lyndsay and her husband, artist Gabriel Lehner, live in Queens with their cats, Grendel and Prufrock. During the few hours a day Lyndsay isn't writing or editing, she is most often cooking, or sampling new kinds of microbrew, or thinking of ways to creatively mismatch her clothing. She is a very proud member of AEA, MWA, ASH, GWN, and BSI (Actor's Equity Association, Mystery Writers of America, the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes, Girls Write Now, and the Baker Street Irregulars, respectively).

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
974 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Starlady
5.0 out of 5 stars Sherlock and the Ripper!
Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2023
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I have read all the original Sherlock Holmes stories and a great many pastiches. I also have a fascination for Jack the Ripper, enhanced by the fact he was never identified. I read another fictional treatment of Jack the Ripper that was totally unsatisfying. I have also read another Sherlock Holmes pastiche dealing with a copycat Ripper that was pretty good. But this novel is excellent! I had not read this author before but based on the subject and the praise in the reviews I decided to give it a try. So glad I did! I enjoyed this from the beginning and tore through the second half of the book in a few hours. Ms.. Faye has a great feel for the character of Sherlock Holmes, and captures the horror of the murders combined with Holmes' growing frustration. No spoilers here, but there is a completely satisfying conclusion. I don't give five stars very often but this book deserves it for the immense enjoyment that I got from it.
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Tim N.
4.0 out of 5 stars Great on atmosphere, so-so- on mystery, but overall a solid Holmes offering
Reviewed in the United States on September 12, 2011
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Sherlock Holmes is tough for a modern writer to get right. The language, the character, the historical details, the overall atmosphere... after all, Conan Doyle was living in the world he was writing. Modern writers have to go back try to re-construct it, and make the world and the characters seem authentic to the period. That's hard to do. Throw in a real historical event (the Jack the Ripper killings), and you've got quite a task for an author. In Dust and Shadow, Lyndsay Faye by and large nails the time period, the atmosphere, and the characters. This is a believable Sherlock Holmes tale, with a wonderful London-by-gaslight atmosphere that I've rarely seen done as well. Sherlock Holmes and his trusty physician / biographer Watson as presented here fit in very nicely with the characters Arthur Conan Doyle crafted over a century ago. The novel is a tad over 300 pages, but moves along quite nicely. I looked forward to picking this book up every night and spending an hour or so with the splendid characters.

If there is one place the book fails somewhat, it is in the mystery and presentation of Jack the Ripper. The name Jack the Ripper has for a hundred years conveyed the images of terror and mystery -- a predator hunting the fog-shrouded streets of Victorian London, preying on those unfortunate enough to cross his path. Lyndsay Faye tries, but only has limited success in pressing that image onto the page. Part of this is simply the constraints of a first-person narrative: since Holmes stories are told from the viewpoint of Watson, it's not really feasible to build tension with the murders themselves. Instead, we're left with the characters finding the aftermath of the Ripper's rampages, and Watson's rather restrained descriptions of the murder scenes. We learn very little about the individual victims -- less so with each murder, it seems -- which also serves to blunt the emotional impact. There are only a few moments of tension in the book, only a couple of which directly involve the Ripper himself. The solution is just so-so. Faye avoids using some of the more fantastical conspiracy theories out there and sticks with a reasonably believable solution which I appreciate, but the climax and the revelation of the Ripper's identity don't have a lot of impact. The story here is more about Holmes and how he tracks down the Ripper, rather than a "whodunit" with an interesting solution.

All that said, overall I very much enjoyed this book and recommend it for anyone who enjoys either Sherlock Holmes, or the Victorian time period. Where Dust and Shadow really shines is in capturing the atmosphere of the period both through the writing and some interesting characters it brings in. Holmes and Watson as written here are both characters you look forward to encountering again. The story, for its imperfections as noted above, holds the reader's interest. So grab your glass of brandy and wax candle, and dig in.
10 people found this helpful
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R. Barnes
5.0 out of 5 stars A movie, maybe!
Reviewed in the United States on November 12, 2023
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I just finished reading this book and it was quite a book, I seem drawn to unsolved crimes, D B Cooper, The Zodiac murders and of course Jack the Ripper, Some good theories came from this book, 1, He had to live nearby, and possibly took the poor victims inside to do his gruesome work. I'm a fan and have already bought the collection of Sherlock stories and ms. Faye has written 1 of them.
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Daniel J. Connelly
5.0 out of 5 stars Faye pulls it off
Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2013
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When I first saw Dust and Shadow in a book shop, I had no interest at all. Holmes versus Jack the Ripper? Please. It struck me as a subject better suited to graphic novel than to printed literature. And in any case this was not only fiction, but meta-fiction: a fiction on a fiction. It would be difficult to be invested in a story about a fictional character when the events didn't occur, even in the "real" world of the fictional character.

However, after reading author Lynday Faye's second book, The Gods of Gotham, I had to give Dust and Shadow another look. The influence of Holmes on that second book was clear. I wondered how she had handled Holmes himself.

And the answer was: remarkably well. Faye set herself a remarkable challenge: to work Arthur Canon Doyle's brilliant characters into the documented facts of the Jack the Ripper Story. To pull that off seemed a virtually impossible task. But within just a few pages, a description of a case which preceded the Ripper killings, I was hooked. I had the same feeling I'd had, years ago, reading the originals.

With the beginning of the Ripper killings, the strength of the writing continued. The intermixing of fact and fiction was seamless. There was no sense of events being contorted to fit the facts of the actual murders, nor was there to me a feeling that Holmes was failing to pursue the case to his full talent. This was among Faye's greatest challenges: the Holmes of the original stories was famous for solving cases very quickly. In contrast the Ripper case extended weeks. But I never felt in reading the book that I was reading an imitation of Holmes rather than Holmes himself.

I've seen criticisms of this book in reviews here: that he was too action-oriented or not brilliant enough. I feel these are unfounded. In a Study in Scarlett, the first Holmes novel, Holmes silently hitches a ride on the back of a coach to follow a quarry. In The Sign of Four, there is a boat chase with a gun-fight worthy of Bond. It was no accident Doyle cast Holmes as an ex-boxer. He was a man of action, not just theories. The "action" scenes in Dust and Shadow fit right in with those in the original.

The other was Holmes failed to display his usual brilliance. Again, I disagree. It's quite challenging for an author to walk the narrow line between a plot in which the result is obvious to the reader and one in which the result is completely unpredictable. The reader, of course, has an advantage, knowing based on context within the book whether there is already sufficient information to identify the culprit. Holmes's progression through the case seemed fully consistent with his brilliance from the Doyle books.

If there's one incongruence, I'd point to A Sign of Four, where Holmes says to Watson: "Women are never to be trusted; not the best of them." I think we can forgive Lynday Faye for having Holmes embrace a different view for her work. I also agree the name is unmemorable.

So I strongly recommend this book. Faye did Holmes justice, and provided herself a nice springboard for Gods of Gotham, which was clearly inspired by him. I try to restrict 5-star ratings to books which are truly outstanding in their class, and while I would hardly rate this book as being of the same class as Doyle's originals, within its domain Dust and Shadow is an amazing work.
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Dan Saulnier
5.0 out of 5 stars Mostly great, some weak spots.
Reviewed in Canada on May 28, 2022
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Okay, I enjoyed the last 100 pages immensely. The first 100 was a bit of quandary for me, but I'm glad I hung in there. I found the dialogue sometimes didn't feel right, time-period notwithstanding. Every once in a while a word, verb and/or noun, didn't fit. But that was a minor diversion to the overall achievement of fantastic plotting, pacing and developing of interesting characters. A bit short, too, on the climax, but a great book.
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Rakshit Asole
5.0 out of 5 stars Good for a sherlocksian
Reviewed in India on August 22, 2019
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S. Nambiar
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the absolute best outside the canon. Criminally underrated.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 11, 2016
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Astonishingly good tale of the good Doctor and the world's first consulting detective. Holmes v Jack the Ripper has been done many times before, but Faye captures the feel and the atmosphere of Holmesian London much better than many other feted examples of non-canonical Holmesian adventures. Even that high-water mark of the genre, The Seven Per Cent Solution, can be faulted for making Holmes almost an action hero at the climax, while some others, such as Michael Dibdin's Ripper tale, read as basic sketches or exercises rather than lasting contenders. (And the less said about Anthony Horowitz's too-clever-by-half Moriarty the better!)
Faye's language holds up well for the most part, apart from some anachronisms that other reviewers have commented on, and I found myself slowing down as I reached halfway because I felt like I had discovered an authentic lost tale of Holmes and did not want it to end!
In her own excellent series of policing in New York in the 1840s, starting with The Gods of Gotham, Faye's ability to conjure up an authentic period tone of voice and feel finds full expression, which this excellent debut hints at.
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Gianfranco Sherwood
4.0 out of 5 stars Un apocrifo eccellente
Reviewed in Italy on February 2, 2013
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Oggi Sherlock Holmes va quasi di moda (non che sia mai stato dimenticato, essendo da quando è apparso, un archetipo e un'icona), e - oltre a due brutti film e a una serie televisiva BBC straordinaria -, ultimamente la sua figura ha ispirato molti apocrifi. A volte deprecabili, quasi sempre inutili e poco ispirati, questi romanzi in genere riproducono piattamente i più triti stilemi del personaggio e del suo mondo e cercano di stuzzicare la curiosità del lettore introducendo personaggi famosi. Ecco allora il povero inquilino di Baker Street messo alle prese con Einstein, Dracula, Marx e Freud. Era dunque lecito temere il peggio dallo scontro tra Shelock Holmes e Jack the Ripper proposto da Lindsay Faye. Anche perchè nell'impresa si erano già impegnati Ellery Queen e Michael Dibdin con esiti non esaltanti nel primo caso e tali da suscitare l'indignazione di molti appassionati nel secondo. Invece, il libro della giovane autrice è una bella scoperta. Frutto di accurate ricerche su quei fatti e di un'attento studio dei testi di Arthur Conan Doyle, Dust and shadow si propone efficacemente come una realistica ricostruzione dei delitti dell'East End, una plausibile ipotesi sulla identità dell'assassino e un'omaggio documentato e rispettoso della più celebre coppia di investigatori della letteratura. Per tacere del fatto che il libro è avvincente e si legge d'un fiato. Se non do un voto pieno al romanzo è perché non mi ha convinto sino in fondo lo stile, sin troppo abilmente mimetico, che a volte pare più vittoriano di quanto potesse esserlo quello di uno scrittore vittoriano. Avrei anche gradito qualche pagina di meno, con l'eliminazione di episodi che paiono utili solo ad aggiungere pagine - ma qui sospetto che la responsabilità sia degli editor. Comunque, sono minuzie, che non inficiano il valore di un libro assolutamente raccomandabile a anche a chi non è un appassionato di Sherlock Holmes. Stupisce che non abbia ancora trovato un editore italiano.
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edward bache
4.0 out of 5 stars good
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 19, 2023
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A very good Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes pastiche rolled into one . A very good plot and a great feel for 19th century Whitechapel
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