The good news is, Ripper is actually a really good book.
The bad news is, you have to get through Wake to read it.
I mean, technically you can read Ripper as a standalone, but it’s a better book if you know the background on whatshisname – Lane (it’s been a long afternoon).
Wake is… not great. I mean, the ideas are there, but the execution is generic enough that I have it conflated with another rural Aussie crime novel in my mind. The basics: Mina McCreery’s twin sister Evelyn disappeared from their shared bedroom 19 years ago. No trace of her has ever been found; a reward offered by her mother has never been paid out.
Lane Holland is a private investigator, who arrives in town to investigate the cold case and (hopefully) collect the payout.
There’s a lot going on, and it was not executed in a manner that made it stick with me. However, total spoiler: Evelyn was murdered, the murderer is in turn killed, and Lane ends up in jail.
Although there’s a lot more to it than that; you’ll have to read it.
This sets the scene for Ripper, a much better book that starts with Lane in jail.
Ripper is tightly plotted, suspenseful, and engaging. Burr’s second novel (Wake was her debut) revisits the Rainer Ripper case, a small town series of murders from 17 years before the events of the novel. Back then, the town was terrorised by a serial killer, who has since been imprisoned. These days, due to a newly built bypass, the only business the town sees is in the form of ghoulish tourists come to take selfies in front of the murder sites.
The town decides to hear out a company who wants to run Murder Town tours around Rainer, bringing much-needed cash to the local businesses. The tour operator, however, is murdered, copycat style, and the town is forced to revisit the original murder investigation.
Lane is also investigating from prison – this is a bit intricate, and probably best left unspoiled.
The story unspools in surprisingly riveting fashion, given that I was decidedly unriveted by its predecessor (sorry not sorry). I’d say give them both a go – I could be unfairly remembering Wake, or it suffered from being read just after a Jane Harper (superior to most) novel.