Ripper

Special X #4

by Michael Slade

From the bestselling author of Cutthroat comes a nerve-shattering thriller combining the legend of Jack the Ripper, the terrifying secrets of the Tarot, and a "mystery weekend" on a secluded Canadian island, whereurder becomes all too real.

Genres: Horror, Thriller, Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Suspense, Canada

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Slade on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MountieNoir

Slade on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MountieNoir

Criminal lawyer MICHAEL SLADE has acted in over one hundred murder cases. His specialty is the law of insanity. He argued the last death penalty case in Canada’s highest court.

Backed by his forensic experience, Slade’s Special X and Wyatt Rook thrillers fuse the genres of police and legal procedure, whodunit and impossible crime, suspense, history, and horror.

Slade was guest of honor at both the Bloody Words crime convention and the World Horror Convention. As Time Out puts it, “A thin line separates crime and horror, and in Michael Slade’s thrillers, the demarcation vanishes altogether.”

Slade was guest speaker at the international Police Leadership Conference and several RCMP regimental dinners. As Reader’s Digest puts it, “The Slade books have developed a strong following among police officers because of their strict adherence to proper police procedure.”

For the stories behind his plots, visit Slade’s Morgue at www.specialx.net.

Reviews

[Orient · Rating 5 out of 5]

RTC on the weekend! Sorry guys, I'm a busy slave of RL.

[Paul Weiss · Rating 1 out of 5]

Jack the Ripper meets Agatha Christie!

Jack the Ripper meets Agatha Christie's THEN THERE WERE NONE in chapters alternating with tediously written psychological treatises on Satanism and the occult. This is a yawner that I couldn't recommend to anybody. Is there anything at all that Slade didn't attempt to throw into this preposterous salad from the bar - epilepsy, child abuse, kidnapping, silly technology, rabid dogs, Mounties, guillotines, wheelchair killers? Pure silliness and only dogged determination got me through this one!

Paul Weiss

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Headhunter, Ghoul, and Cutthroat are all fine books, but they've got nothing on Ripper. If you've only got time for one Special X novel, I recommend you make it this one, as it stands alone the best.

There are, of course, references to previous Slade outings here. The Mounties discuss prior cases, mainly Cutthroat, although the other two get their nods too. There are some minor callbacks you won't get, a returning minor character you won't realize is a returning minor character, and the impact of certain events will be blunted, if you've not read the previous books. However, the overall story stands alone and does so very well despite bringing together the protagonists of the earlier stories for our first full Special X outing. Despite juggling three major story threads, Slade keeps the pace churning as scenes swap between DeClercq's lower-key role as the coordinator of his team, Nick Craven's work gathering evidence and interviewing witnesses, and Zinc Chandler's attempt to prove he's still got what it takes to be a cop after what went down on his trip to Hong Kong five years ago (chronicled in Cutthroat).

Then, of course, there's the fourth POV we've all come to see: that of the killer(s).

Slade's no stranger to spilt blood and grue as every reader should know, but the victims in Ripper are dispatched in some truly heinous ways. From having one's head ritually skinned and scalped, to being on the receiving end of face-melting acid; from having one's intestines removed via brute suction, to having one's head pulped in a vise one crank-turn at a time, if you're looking to compile a list of "worst ways to expire", Ripper will easily provide a dozen entries.

Ripper also throws a ton of history the reader's way, Slade's trademark calling card. Police procedural stuff is lighter in this book than the earlier novels, but you'll get more than your fair share of background on everything from Jack the Ripper and Aleister Crowley, 'locked room' mysteries and the tarot, John Dickson Carr and Ellery Queen. Slade's books always end with a bibliography, just in case the info dumps don't tell you everything you wanted to know about a given subject raised by one or more characters. Ever the cheeky one, Slade even has one of his characters remark about Chief Inspector DeClercq, "He thinks novels should have bibliographies so you know the author's done his homework."

All that's well and good for a solid four-star read, but what earns my fifth star here is Zinc Chandler's part of the story. Since he's been out of action for the last five years after suffering serious head trauma in Cutthroat, Chandler's been looking for an 'in' that will let him prove (both to the RCMP and himself) that he has what it takes to still be an effective cop. DeClercq, sensing a way to ease him back into the action, recruits him for a safe but cerebral assignment: he's to play Inspector against a dozen hardcore mystery authors who are staging their own live-action "Catch A Killer" scenario for the chance to earn a $50,000 prize. Chandler's role is to see if his talent as a cop makes him better equipped to solve a mystery than those who create them for a living, which is a fantastic idea for a mystery in and of itself.

What should be a quiet, simple weekend getaway of fun turns into Slade's own homage to Christie's classic, And Then There Were None as the guests discover the mansion has been painstakingly fitted with all manner of vicious, violent, and horrible death traps. The planes which flew them to the island have departed, the power is out, the phone lines have been cut, and a massive brewing storm ensures there's no possibility of a rescue party. As bodies pile up, Chandler comes to the cold realization the killer has to be among them--the only question is whether or not he can solve the mystery before the party of fourteen is whittled down to a party of none.

This sequence alone is worth the price of admission: Slade obliterates a smorgasbord of secondary characters in gleefully sadistic ways, all the while taunting both Chandler and the reader with a never-ending series of conundrums and riddles. How do you fire a crossbow without your finger on the trigger? How do you cut a man's throat in the middle of an empty room? Read for yourself--I do spoiler-free book reviews.

The takeaway from all this is Ripper's a gas from start to finish. Slade's love/hate letter to the finest mystery scribes of all time is blanched deep red with his penchant for bloodletting. One of the scribes assembled on the island for the game explains he writes horror-whodunnits, a very niche market: the bloodier bits turn off the traditional mystery fans, while the mystery aspects don't do much to whet the typical horror fan's appetite. The man was referring to his own publications, but he just as easily could have been Slade, sneaking in a quick fourth-wall breaker about his own writing. No matter--Ripper rocks, and remains my favorite Slade offering to this day.

[Terry Cornell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Again this series isn't for the squeamish. In fact Slade seems to outdo previous efforts in killing off the victims in this book. Someone is duplicating the slayings of Jack the Ripper in Vancouver. The Special X squad of Mounties are back in the picture. A mix of the history of the real Jack, tarot cards, Aleister Crowley, spotted owls, and mystery writers brought together in a historic isolated mansion on an island of the coast of Vancouver. The book reunites Zinc Chandler, and the head of Special X Robert DeClerq, and introduces a new character Nick Craven. The ending was a little disappointing, leaving some things in the air, which I assume will be wrapped up in the beginning of the next book in the series 'Evil Eye'. This time I planned ahead and found a copy of the out-of-print 'Evil Eye', now that I'm hooked on the series!

[Robert Reiner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my second read of this one. Michael Slade is a criminal lawyer from Vancouver who worked on many cases involving the criminally insane which apparently inspired him to write a series of thrillers featuring a team of Mounties known as Special X who hunt down serial killers. His books are unique as Slade does a lot of research for his novels and shares that knowledge with the reader. This can be a turnoff for some but I love that about his books. Slade also loves challenging the reader to guess “whodunit”. Just when you think you’ve figured it out, often the last page will cause your mind to be blown with the big reveal.

Ripper is book four of the series and follows a killer who is obsessed with Jack the Ripper. As I mentioned above, Slade does his homework on Jack the Ripper and throughout the novel he takes a break from the story to fill you in on all the facts known from the actual Ripper case. Ironically this year a news article surfaced that due to DNA matching, the Rippers identity has been revealed. I’m curious what Slade’s response was to this.

The second half of Ripper involves something straight out of an Agatha Christie novel. While the police are searching for the Ripper, elsewhere on a secluded island a murder mystery themed event for charity has been organized. What the participants don’t realize is that the Ripper killer is amongst them and people start getting picked off one by one. It’s very reminiscent of “And Then There Were None” by Christie except this book is much darker and more gruesome.

I think this is my favorite Slade book and even though it was my second time around, I had forgotten who the killer was and was fooled yet again. Nice job Slade.

[TheRavenking · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to admit that I skipped large parts of this book, since I was only really interested in the last third, where the story becomes an “And Then There Were None” style contained thriller with a group of people trapped on a remote island. It also has some locked room murders and Gideon Fells’s locked room lecture from John Dickson Carr’s “The Three Coffins” is mentioned and analysed. Throughout there is some fascinating trivia about the occult connections of the Jack the Ripper case and the origins of Tarot. The writing style just wasn’t my cup of tea though. It's very fast paced, people keep dying left and right and so many perverts and psychos pop up, that I felt numbed rather than excited by all the violence.

This is your typical 1990’s serial killer thriller with a lot of disturbing content. Not without intelligence and most likely well-researched, but I like my horror/mystery books a bit more subtle and character-focused.

[AbyssTiger69 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buddy Read with the awesome Amanda!! 🤘🤩🤘
Again this was a reread as I have read the full series, years ago mind, so I approached this with a fresh outlook, thankfully I didn’t remember too much this time…

This book marked the return to good old fashioned sex and slaughter, mixing those aspects with the detective work and historical angles. The history side dealt with Jack the Ripper alongside satanism and the tarot. All good fun😂 There was also an interesting insight into how certain people’s minds work, especially if led by others😉😉
What seems like random killings eventually leads to what can be best described as a fun mix of Agatha Christie’s And then there were none mixed with the Saw movies! The last certain percentage of the book was so riveting and tension filled with who would survive / who dies next mixed with some awesomely graphic kills, phew!! The actual ending was quite different in a sense and left you hanging!!!😭😂😂

I’ve marked one star down because unfortunately I found some sections of the investigation quite dull and repetitive, to the point where my mind kept wandering 🤷🏻‍♂️😂

[Elizabeth Ajtay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael Slade is a pseudonym of two authors, a father and daughter team from Vancouver B.C. They make a good pair for the style of writing in the Michael Slade novels, which is brutal and truthful and incorporates the history behind the scenes. They know their stuff and have thoroughly researched their topics, and if you like thrillers and gore, and mystery with history these novels are rated number one for me. It certainly isn't everyone's cup of tea. Michael Slade novel's are best read in order beginning with Headhunters. All the novels I have read are very gory and a very intelligent read. And since I was raised in the Vancouver area and the novels are set there, I can really picture the scenery and Michael Slade gets it right on.

[Andy Butturini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Canada is a dangerous place

[William · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hate to admit this, but I did not really finish this book. I skipped ahead, and read the very confusing and unsatisfying ending. It has been two weeks since I started it, and I am less then two hundred pages in. The reason is simple: the book simply has not caught my attention. Here is what I think went wrong:
a) too many characters and side stories. Slade dedicates whole (albeit short) chapters to people and their problems who just die off in the next chapter anyways.
b) a constantly changing POV. Who is speaking? Sometimes I do not know until half way through a chapter.
c) a writing style where the reader is too often left wondering "what just happened?". Just as Slade warms us up with a detailed description of a grisly murder scene, he changes direction with...
d) another flashback. The time and setting change as often as the POV . He talks extensively about Jack the Ripper, then Aleister Crowley, then any number of controversial figures from the past. It takes away from the present story and murders.
Maybe someday, I'll go back to this novel, but I doubt it. It is quite unusual that I give up on a novel, but, in the end, it seems like the right thing to do with this convoluted excuse for a mystery.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a Slade book so increasingly large swathes of text read like excerpts from research packets, but the story is so much fun that you won't mind...

Barely touching on the (devastating) cliffhanger from the end of Cutthroat (damn you, Slade!) and picking up about five years later (really now, damn you Slade!), Ripper is a deliberately and pleasurably classical whodunit, packed with references and filtered through Slade's uniquely hair-raising sensibility. The events on Deadman's Island, where a clutch of whodunit authors are gathered during a blizzard, forms the real hook of the story and would make for an excellent horror movie... bizarre when so much rubbish gets turned into cinema that Slade's first few books have not...

(It was pretty much around the Ripper mark that the Special X series waned for me, I've read a couple of the later books but something of the demented energy of the first four was just... absent, it was also the tipping-point where the research tidbits took too much ground from the ripping yarns you bought the book for to begin with. If you only read the splendid first four then you will have had a blast...)

[Jaime · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was not on par with the other Slade books. It tries to be clever and has an interesting mix of a Ripper killer, Tarot readings predicting doom and a take on the Ten Little Indians movie plot. But, it sinks because of the many plot lines and too much gratuitous violence and needless secondary and tertiary subplots. It was confusing and ineffective. This was only average.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, surprise! I read Ripper, and I'm pleased to post a high rating for another Slade novel.
I must thank the readers of my site who assured me I would like this one. They were right.

This is quite the multi-layered effort, comprising of Jack the Ripper, Satanism, and Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. Now I'll bet you're intrigued!

Dive into this one, readers.
The history and speculation on Jack the Ripper are fascinating, as is the history of the Tarot and Satanism. And the "And Then There Were None" angle moves at a breakneck pace with some of the most inventive (if not a bit far-fetched) and sickening murders I've read. I'm glad I didn't miss out on this one. A word to the squeamish: don't even think about picking this up.

[James Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cool story!

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scary and takes place close to where I live.

[Nancy Carbajal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was writing my review or thoughts on "The Fury" when I saw to my right on the screen about books that were somewhat similar to the book I had just read....or books that people read next. "Ripper" was one such book and I remember picking it up at a thrift store...so I decided to read it. I'd had it for quite some time, I have stacks of books to get to (sigh).
Truthfully, I really didn't read to much into it as it had too much information about The Devil and blood and sadistic themes for even my tastes. But I have to post, as a who done it, it's excellent. If I wasn't so squeamish, I probably would have read it more slower and looked more into it. It freaked me out and left me feeling guilty. I even felt uneasy and squeamish, but I HAD to know who did it!! Too much Jack The Ripper and Crowley and Devil worshipers for me....I even felt weird one evening and went to bed LOL!!
Seriously though, this is one well written book, but too much for me...the subject that is, and the book ends with a note that the survivors would be returning in another story (Whaaaaaaa).
The author really lets you into some fine research and story plot, but as for me, again, I couldn't handle the subject matter. I still feel ugly about it and wait for the feelings to go away. I'm not sure I will ever return to read it as I would like to.

[Bianca van Willigenburg · Rating 2 out of 5]

The last third of this book makes up for the first two thirds. I thought this was a very confusing book. In the first two thirds you get a lot of information; many character (with no apparent main character), information about serial killer (especially Jack the Ripper) and many departments of the Canadian Mounties (and the acronyms). A lot of this information could have been cut to make a more comprehensible story. Only in the last third of the book does everything come together and becomes apparent who the main character is.

What confused me even more was Slade's tendency to constantly switch by calling his characters by their first and last name, often switching between sentences. There are many characters and switching between what he calls them I was constantly thrown out of the story by having to recall what character he is referring to.

I almost stopped reading this book but I'm glad I persevered because the last part is good and hard to put down.

[Leigh Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before this week, if you had asked me what my favorite Slade book was, I would have answered "Ripper." I know I've read this book probably at least 10 times.

Maybe I'm getting old. Maybe my tastes have changed. Maybe the times have changed. The authors spend a lot time dissecting the motivations of their villains, and there is just a lot of ugliness in that motivation. Some of the characterization of feminism, gay/trans characters, etc. is not only dated, but it's just bloody awful. I know Slade is/has created revised versions of his books, and I'm still re-reading the paperback I first bought back in 1994 -- probably during a special trip to Borders in South Hills outside Pittsburgh PA.

I remember reading this book thinking I was edgy. Now, there's a bit of a cringe aspect.

I will continue my reread of the Special X series because that's a goal I have. But it's sure prompting some interesting thoughts and considerations.

[Jazzy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this because I love And Then There Were None mysteries, but I was not a fan of this book. I did not want to hear the author’s opinions on feminism throughout the entire book, there was too much animal cruelty for me, lots of long boring non-fiction passages, way too many side plots, and the book doesn’t reach the And Then There Were None part until two thirds of the way through and then all of the murders happen way too quickly. I think this book attempted to do way too much. The author also tries so hard to be offensive, but it just comes across as trying too hard to be edgy.

Also some of the writing is just so bad. “…his penis stood erect like satan’s downstairs.” So his penis was erect like a penis? Great simile.

[Terri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Deqlerq is back trying to solve a series of murders mixing elements of tarot, Crowley and Jack the Ripper. Meanwhile Zinc Chandler attends a mystery weekend on an island where 'And Then There Were None' seems to be happening.

This was a very complicated story at times, esp when they were describing the magickal elements to the crime. The killers were evil and the murders quite gory and very intellectual. Nods were made to various great masters of the craft (Poe, Carr, Christie) and I enjoyed that. But sometimes it seemed a little too much.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really got into the beginning of this book. It started off the way I like with a gruesome murder and went onto explaining the different classifications of serial killers and it was interesting.

Then because the murderers were involved in the occult, using Tarot, etc. I feel the plot got too involved and detailed with the occult. I didn't really need to know everything there was to know about dating back to its roots.

It picked back up with the "Mystery" weekend on Deadman's Island but it was like starting a new book again because I had lost interest.

[Brian Sammons · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last of the really good and fun books from Slade, at least, of the ones I've read. Basically his take on Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None with some Jack the Ripper mythology (as a bit of a Ripperogist I really dig that) and mystical mumbo jumbo tossed in. Oh and the usual Slade double dose of sex and violence. All around great fun.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

More bloodshed and mayhem!

[Kim Canich · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good.

[Ruby Ridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not really a big fan of this genre and I found this as confusing as Hell. Three stars because it was well written.

[Marni · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed some clever sentences in this book and it had me wondering how they were going to figure out the murders. It was also very violent and had too much explanation about the Tarot cards.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

4th book in Slade's Special X series and it was def better than #3, Cutthroat, but still not as good as Ghoul or Headhunter.

Again, Slade ends his books with an actual bibliography, so you know he does his homework and research. He is like a horror/thriller version of Michael Crichton. He even has a character mention that he only reads fiction novels with a bibliography LOL.

Anyway, we get another convoluted Plot line that wraps up fairly nice. We get some insight on Jack The Ripper lore and conspiracies, occultism, satanism, tarot cards, Locked Room Mysteries, mansions on an island, 2 serial killers for double the fun (both with extremely high IQs, Owls and owl pellets, Lice ...and the list goes on and on.

We have Zinc Chandler back from his heinous ordeal in Cutthroat and he takes a back seat for the first half of the book as we are introduced to new Soon to be Special X member Nick Craven. As usual, we have DeClerq running the show.

I really enjoyed this. I liked where the plot went the last 1/3 of the book with Deadmans Island and how it tied together with the satanism/ tarots and doppelganger lore.

FYI- best kill is a toilet bowl scene.

4 star book.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Too gory to be thrillers ..too detection like to be horrors this is the third Michael Slade book I've read and the first for about three decades.
Much younger I picked up Ghoul mainly as it had a ..then rare.. holographic cover ..plus Alice cooper gave it the thumbs up on some blurb found on the cover..anyhow at that time being somewhat a gore fan I enjoyed Ghoul and chanced upon headhunter later on in a bargain bin.
Anyhow these are decent 'serial killer' cop fair there's enough reality and background seeping into these tomes to elevate them beyond just slashing and hacking..In this one Crowley and Jack the ripper feed the narrative.
The ending feels a bit rushed in truth but apart from that this was a welcome reintroduction to an author I've not read in a while.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s been some time (years) since I read a Michael Slade thriller so I decided to give this one a try. Set in Vancouver a killer is murdering women a ritualistic way which appears the mirror the crimes of Jack the Ripper. The RCMP are on the case particularly Special X their elite task force. The author introduces a number of familiar characters from previous books and the story proceeds. Yet the story seems more than a little flimsy and the exposition and information dumps do nothing more than slow the pace of the narrative. Apart from the stock characters new players are two dimensional at best. The addition of a whodunnit weekend on an uninhabited island seems clumsy and telegraphs at least the location of the ending. Not one of his best.

[Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love 10 Little Indians/And Then There Were None but have a grimmer outlook on life? This modern retelling is fascinating and pays homage to the great Dame Agatha. I read it when it came out and am now rereading the series. Still love it.