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Jack Knife
For Inspector Jonas Robb, each night brings new terror. But this night is different. It's brought two strangers-David and Sara-who have arrived in London seemingly with no past. What they do have is incredible knowledge about the Whitechapel fiend known as Jack the Ripper. Because David and Sara do have a past. It just happens to be in the future.
Sent back in time, they're in pursuit of a 21st-century madman whose purpose is to change history. As the body count rises, Sara and David realize that their quarry and Robb's have become linked in a way that threatens not only Victorian London, but the very fabric of time.
Sent back in time, they're in pursuit of a 21st-century madman whose purpose is to change history. As the body count rises, Sara and David realize that their quarry and Robb's have become linked in a way that threatens not only Victorian London, but the very fabric of time.
343 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 30, 2007
3 people are currently reading
133 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
August 5, 2009
Not one for tear-jerkers, I cried in the end. I loved the sci-fi and historical combination of the plot. There is action and intellect, and invokes thinking about time travel/changing the future.
July 25, 2011
I absolutely loved this book. Although it did start off a little slow in the beginning, it's all worth it in the end! I'm not going to write a long review about what I loved in this book, because I enjoyed everything. I love a good book that can make you cry, although I did want an extremely happy ending; the ending given will always stay in your heart.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a good mystery, romance, or even a historical background.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a good mystery, romance, or even a historical background.
September 13, 2007
This was probably the worst book I have ever read, and I once read a book about killer seagulls. In addition to the ridiculous plot and the horrible writing, this author commits some of the worst abuses I have ever seen inflicted upon the noble semi-colon in a published work of fiction. I only wish that Good Reads allowed a zero star rating.
February 25, 2009
My wife and I both thought this one was outstanding. A story of a group who travels through time to Whitechapel, London during the time of the Jack the Ripper murders. They try to find the killer. The time and place was well written and the story is a thrill a minute! I could not put this one down until it was finished.
March 4, 2024
Actual rating: *** 1/2
A story of time travel and Victorian England, of love and loss, of Jack the Ripper. This novel was interesting, to say the least. It starts with you classic mad scientist, Johnathan Avery, who invented and programed a time machine (the Portal, as this author calls it), going back to maliciously cause chaos. Another scientist working on the project, Sara is sent back with black ops operator, David to bring him back.
They land in Victorian England at the time of Jack the Ripper and later discover that Avery has already been there for 4 years and is working to bring down the government in a sort of grass roots movement. On top of that, he's not Avery anymore as he lost all memory of who he was prior to landing there. This is one area where the author isn't really consistent. He's often referred to as having a fractured personality, but then he's also described as an amnesiac. The former is more fitting than the latter as his shifting during conversations is very similar to descriptions of Multiple Personality Disorder (Dissociative Identity Disorder).
Sara and David do a good bit of sleuthing on their own, but also get some help from Inspector Jonas Robb, son of a high ranking aristocrat. Oh, and he and Sara fall in love and he proposes to her. Several times in fact. She finally reveals why she can't and discloses to him that she's from the future. Here's a shocker, he doesn't believe her or take the news well.
I find it interesting that, while most tales of time travel go for a very "butterfly effect" approach to going back in time (don't talk to anyone, don't move anything, etc), these characters willingly interact with people, regardless of the possible outcomes. Sara is much more careful about it at first, but by the end, they're both making a lot of changes.
I really appreciated how the author let you know who's perspective each section was written from, but she got a little ridiculous at times with making a section break every time there was the slightest change in scenery. Some of it wasn't bad, but some of it was distracting. Overall, a solid debut novel.
A story of time travel and Victorian England, of love and loss, of Jack the Ripper. This novel was interesting, to say the least. It starts with you classic mad scientist, Johnathan Avery, who invented and programed a time machine (the Portal, as this author calls it), going back to maliciously cause chaos. Another scientist working on the project, Sara is sent back with black ops operator, David to bring him back.
They land in Victorian England at the time of Jack the Ripper and later discover that Avery has already been there for 4 years and is working to bring down the government in a sort of grass roots movement. On top of that, he's not Avery anymore as he lost all memory of who he was prior to landing there. This is one area where the author isn't really consistent. He's often referred to as having a fractured personality, but then he's also described as an amnesiac. The former is more fitting than the latter as his shifting during conversations is very similar to descriptions of Multiple Personality Disorder (Dissociative Identity Disorder).
Sara and David do a good bit of sleuthing on their own, but also get some help from Inspector Jonas Robb, son of a high ranking aristocrat. Oh, and he and Sara fall in love and he proposes to her. Several times in fact. She finally reveals why she can't and discloses to him that she's from the future. Here's a shocker, he doesn't believe her or take the news well.
I find it interesting that, while most tales of time travel go for a very "butterfly effect" approach to going back in time (don't talk to anyone, don't move anything, etc), these characters willingly interact with people, regardless of the possible outcomes. Sara is much more careful about it at first, but by the end, they're both making a lot of changes.
I really appreciated how the author let you know who's perspective each section was written from, but she got a little ridiculous at times with making a section break every time there was the slightest change in scenery. Some of it wasn't bad, but some of it was distracting. Overall, a solid debut novel.
April 29, 2020
I love this!
Virginia Baker more than makes up for the occasional confusing passage with her outstanding word craft! I have never read anything so emotionally compelling. I wept along with the characters; both real and fictional.
This story will stay with me forever.
If you want to be pulled into a story, this will do it!
Warning: there are some places you won't want to go to, and some people you won't want to go anywhere near.
Virginia Baker more than makes up for the occasional confusing passage with her outstanding word craft! I have never read anything so emotionally compelling. I wept along with the characters; both real and fictional.
This story will stay with me forever.
If you want to be pulled into a story, this will do it!
Warning: there are some places you won't want to go to, and some people you won't want to go anywhere near.
May 22, 2024
well.. what can i say? it's quite a thrill to have read this book. The story is about a famous serial killer. I happened to have found the book in a bookstore and it was for sale. So why not? i bought it and then i read it. Well, i don't recommend this book if you're a lazy reader. The plot was build up a little bit slow. But in the end it was still a good novel to read.
December 30, 2022
This book was really all over the place. I think it needed a little help. An interesting idea that wasn’t quite executed well. I can’t think of anything else positive to say about it other than it was an interesting idea.
Granted, I wasn’t expecting much from it other than for it to be mildly entertaining and unfortunately for me it was more annoying. Glad to see that some people very much enjoyed it.
Granted, I wasn’t expecting much from it other than for it to be mildly entertaining and unfortunately for me it was more annoying. Glad to see that some people very much enjoyed it.
December 15, 2018
Better than expected.. Took me 3 years to finally read it and I'm glad I did! :)
December 29, 2021
I stopped reading on page 88. Somehow the book ended up in the attic in a box with a bookmark still in place. Not a good sign...
April 17, 2024
Interesting version of Jack the Ripper
September 21, 2007
Jack Knife, by Virginia Baker (a Writers of the Future grand prize winner for “Rachel’s Wedding”), is an entertaining but familiar twist on the Jack-the-Ripper mystery, which has gotten a lot of play in the SF and fantasy field, with TV shows like Star Trek and Babylon 5 making use of it, and writers as varied as Robert Bloch, Harlan Elllison, Alan Moore and Karl Alexander using it for fictional fodder. Like Alexander (whose book Time After Time was adapted to film), Baker makes use of time travel in her novel, resulting in something both formulaic and original.
The formulaic part comes in the premise: two time travelers, Sara Grant and David Eliot–Americans both–are hot on the trail of time-traveling, continuum-changing rogue Jonathan Avery. The rogue is none other than the scientist who invented the time-traveling machine. Miffed because he wasn’t chosen to be the first time traveler (fellow scientist Grant got that honor), Avery violates protocol, commits an act of violence that takes someone’s life, and heads back in time. Special Ops Agent Eliot accompanies Grant back to the late 19th Century to capture Avery before he can do something to seriously alter the future. Once they arrive in London, the pair discovers Avery may be linked to the Ripper murders in White Chapel. That’s the hackneyed, derivative part–and it’s a lot–of Baker’s debut. What elevates the tale to the level of an entertaining, worth-at-least one read, novel is Baker’s sure-handedness in drawing scenes and creating characters from 19th Century London, as well as offering up obscure facts and suspects in the age-old mystery that still fascinates most everyone. Good fun!
The formulaic part comes in the premise: two time travelers, Sara Grant and David Eliot–Americans both–are hot on the trail of time-traveling, continuum-changing rogue Jonathan Avery. The rogue is none other than the scientist who invented the time-traveling machine. Miffed because he wasn’t chosen to be the first time traveler (fellow scientist Grant got that honor), Avery violates protocol, commits an act of violence that takes someone’s life, and heads back in time. Special Ops Agent Eliot accompanies Grant back to the late 19th Century to capture Avery before he can do something to seriously alter the future. Once they arrive in London, the pair discovers Avery may be linked to the Ripper murders in White Chapel. That’s the hackneyed, derivative part–and it’s a lot–of Baker’s debut. What elevates the tale to the level of an entertaining, worth-at-least one read, novel is Baker’s sure-handedness in drawing scenes and creating characters from 19th Century London, as well as offering up obscure facts and suspects in the age-old mystery that still fascinates most everyone. Good fun!
February 6, 2008
This book, for me, started off on shaky ground. Time travelers going back in time to when the Jack the Ripper crimes took place in London to try to find and bring back a rogue physicist from the 21st century before he changes history forever? Far-fetched.
It also didn't help that the heroine is an uber-feminist who chafes at the constraints put on women in Victorian society. And some of the quips made me roll my eyes - "Wait until you get the Internet," she says. Ugh.
The way the book is written also takes a bit of getting used to. It's very choppy, jumping from character to character. I didn't really get into it until about halfway through the book. And I think the author was trying too hard; some of her descriptions and metaphors are much too heavy. Frankly, if I had to read the phrase "singing in his blood" (or any variation on that theme) one more time, I was going to scream.
The story was just intriguing enough to make me continue, especially in the early part of the book when there were so many eye-rolling moments I sometimes wanted to quit. It picked up about halfway through the book; for me, the saving grace was the character of Jonas Robb. He was a very complex character that finds himself (intimately) involved with the time travelers and in too deep, not understanding what's going on but compelled to help anyway.
Not a great book, but a decent read. But don't expect to get more from it than a little bit of distraction. It's not THAT good.
It also didn't help that the heroine is an uber-feminist who chafes at the constraints put on women in Victorian society. And some of the quips made me roll my eyes - "Wait until you get the Internet," she says. Ugh.
The way the book is written also takes a bit of getting used to. It's very choppy, jumping from character to character. I didn't really get into it until about halfway through the book. And I think the author was trying too hard; some of her descriptions and metaphors are much too heavy. Frankly, if I had to read the phrase "singing in his blood" (or any variation on that theme) one more time, I was going to scream.
The story was just intriguing enough to make me continue, especially in the early part of the book when there were so many eye-rolling moments I sometimes wanted to quit. It picked up about halfway through the book; for me, the saving grace was the character of Jonas Robb. He was a very complex character that finds himself (intimately) involved with the time travelers and in too deep, not understanding what's going on but compelled to help anyway.
Not a great book, but a decent read. But don't expect to get more from it than a little bit of distraction. It's not THAT good.
February 12, 2013
One has to enjoy time-travel themed books to get into the plot of this book. I've always been a sucker for them (thanks to "Wrinkle in Time") and am always one to try a book like this out. I fell easily into the plot and would have read it sooner had my social life not been so fantastic. :-P
I definitely recommend this book as it was an excellent twist on the "Jack the Ripper" story and hadmany unforeseen occurrences that kept me in suspense and avidly interested.
I definitely recommend this book as it was an excellent twist on the "Jack the Ripper" story and hadmany unforeseen occurrences that kept me in suspense and avidly interested.
May 26, 2008
A scientist goes back in time, goes mad and tries to change history. Two others go back to stop him. In the middle of it all is Whitechapel and the jack the Ripper crimes. Emphasizing social classes, poverty and their role in social upheaval. it is an interesting book but not as engrossing as I had hoped
July 3, 2008
Very so-so. I don't know why I picked up a book that involved time-travel. Not my thing. Mindless reading after days of cleaning out basement and garage this past week. Glad I'm finished and can move on.
December 20, 2008
Another airport book - another flight, another book. It's a strategy - show up at the airport without a book so I'm forced to make a snap judgement and end up with a book that I perhaps wouldn't have chosen. That said, this is not a very interesting book.
July 1, 2008
An odd mix of genres in an interesting novel centered around Jack the Ripper.
January 5, 2009
I found this book really hard to follow. It was all over the place and didn't seem to catch up in the end.
December 19, 2009
A very good book about Jack the Ripper and time travel.
September 16, 2015
I didn't make it very far in this. Too much jumping around and I was having trouble keeping up with it. It just didn't hold my interest so I bailed before I got too far.
July 21, 2014
I really liked this. It has a bit of a frenetic pace that does take a while to get use to. But who is not going to lie time travel mixed with Jack the Ripper.
March 22, 2015
Fun absorbing read. Really loved this one.
April 24, 2015
I couldn't put it down.Scarey but so good! Sherlockian!
August 4, 2016
Did not find this interesting at all..So, not reading it.
September 27, 2009
I'm a sucker for a Jack The Ripper book.
October 30, 2008
Jack the Ripper and time travel.
October 18, 2012
I really enjoyed this book, however the end annoyed m.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews