Review: Now You See Me (Lacey Flint #1) by S.J. Bolton

Synopsis from Good Reads:

One night after interviewing a reluctant witness at a London apartment complex, Lacey Flint, a young detective constable, stumbles onto a woman brutally stabbed just moments before in the building’s darkened parking lot. Within twenty-four hours a reporter receives an anonymous letter that points out alarming similarities between the murder and Jack the Ripper’s first murder—a letter that calls out Lacey by name. If it’s real, and they have a killer bent on re-creating London’s bloody past, history shows they have just five days until the next attempt.

No one believes the connections are anything more than a sadistic killer’s game, not even Lacey, whom the killer seems to be taunting specifically. However, as they investigate the details of the case start reminding her more and more of a part of her past she’d rather keep hidden. And the only way to do that is to catch the killer herself.

When I read Annie’s review (on The Misstery) on Now You See Me I thought it just might be the book to pull me out of the book funk I’ve been in so far this year. I’m quite happy to say that it did the trick. This well-written twisty mystery consumed me for days.

Lacey is a low-level detective that finds herself caught up in a serial killer investigation when she’s a potential witness of the first murder. As the investigation goes on it becomes apparent that the killer is a Jack the Ripper copycat and Lacey is something of an expert on the topic. She ends up working closely with Mark Josebury, who can’t seem to make up his mind between hitting on her or suspecting her.

Lacey is the stand-offish, serious woman with something to hide that is typical of this genre, but I liked her all the same. She was hard to get a handle on sometimes and I think that added to the mystery. As the narrator, I was never sure how reliable she was being, but all the important information was relayed to the reader at just the right impactful moments. I also really liked Josebury, Dana Tulloch (the detective heading up the investigation), and the other detectives working the case. I liked seeing that the police were competent and respectable. They still had funny moments, but they were professional when they needed to be and it was refreshing to see when that is not often the case in these type of books.

I thought the mystery was really well done. The focus shifts a bit from Jack the Ripper comparisons to the copycat and his/her background around halfway through and the mystery of how it all relates to Lacey becomes a little more forefront. There weren’t a lot of big twists, but there were a lot of little subtle twists and surprises that it kept me from not being able to put the book down. Every time I thought I had the whole thing figured out, there’d be a small development that had me questioning myself. The final reveal at the end was definitely a bit of a surprise and I loved it.

Overall, I really enjoyed Now You See Me. I liked the mystery and the characters. Though I felt like the writing could get weighed down with just a little too much description at times, it was a very addictive, consuming read. I definitely recommend this to mystery lovers and I look forward to continuing the series.

Overall Rating (out of 5): 4 Stars