Capturing the Devil Review

Capturing the Devil by Kerri Maniscalco

This is the last adventure for Audrey Rose and Thomas in the ‘Jack the Ripper’ series. Having arrived in New York, following their exploits on board the Etruria in Escaping Houdini, the pair are excited to finally be making their relationship more official with the announcement of their engagement and begin the planning of their wedding. Apparently never far from trouble, the pair are soon called to assist Audrey Rose’s uncle at a crime scene that appears to bear concerning similarities to Jack Ripper’s murders. The Ripper is dead though, isn’t he?  

I really wanted to enjoy this final outing for these two characters but I’m still not really sure how I feel. I felt like the book was written in two halves. The first half was almost exclusively about Audrey Rose and Thomas’ relationship, meaning we didn’t really get ‘stuck in’ to the crime solving until about half way. I would have preferred these two sides of the narrative to play out alongside each other as they do in the other books, that’s half the fun isn’t it? Instead, because of the way the narrative was split, I really struggled to get hooked on this one. 

Having said that, I really enjoyed the ‘finale’ when we finally got there. I knew very little at all about the ‘real life’ killer that this book is based around, but was shocked and morbidly fascinated by then end. As soon as I finished the book I was Googling the real killer to find out more about him.

This was probably my least favourite book of the series but it still had lots of really fantastic scenes (I mean, that finale). And there were loads of lovely moments between Audrey Rose and Thomas as their relationship develops… Would I read it again? Probably not. Am I glad that I read it and know how their story ends? Absolutely. If you’ve read the others in the series, and enjoyed them then you should definitely give this one a go too. And, if like me, you struggle a little to get going with it, definitely persevere knowing that there’s some cracking, bad ass Audrey Rose stuff coming later.

Final Thought:

This was probably my least favourite book of the series but it still had lots of really fantastic scenes (I mean, that finale). And there were loads of lovely moments between Audrey Rose and Thomas as their relationship develops… Would I read it again? Probably not. Am I glad that I read it and know how their story ends? Absolutely.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Book 4 (complete series)

Genre: YA Historial Crime