Lies That Comfort and Betray by Rosemary Simpson

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery
Content: Some gruesome murders, talk of sex, sexual deviancy, abortionists, prostitutes.


The Ripper murders in Whitechapel are shocking enough to make news worldwide, and in the autumn of 1888, Geoffrey and Prudence find the stories in the New York Herald quite unsettling. But London is not the only city to be terrorized by a mad butcher.

What the Dead Leave Behind was the mystery I enjoyed reading the most last year, so needless to say, I was really looking forward to reading this sequel. I'll start by saying that I liked this one a lot, but not as much as I liked What the Dead Leave Behind. In that book the murder happened during the Great Blizzard of 1888 and I really found the setting interesting. This time around we have the murder happening at around the same time as the Jack the Ripper murders are taking place over in London. I was a bit disappointed in this because I feel like the Jack the Ripper thing has been done to death. This seems to be very loosely based on events that occurred in New York at a later date and features a police detective who was actually a real person.

For most of the book I thought I knew who the killer probably was, but also thought that the solution was too easy. The book did end up keeping me guessing for a while as eventually there ended up being three different good suspects. Besides the ripper part, this book dealt with some heavy issues including abortionists, sexual deviancy, and prostitution. This resulted in the book feeling quite a bit darker than the first book in the series.

I enjoyed revisiting the characters Prudence and Geoffrey, and also liked the addition of the new character Kevin and his dog Blossom, although I did feel like they stole the show a little. I had a big problem with the way Blossom was portrayed. The dog came off as way too human and it wasn't realistic in a book like this that is set in the real world. I also would have liked for a little more development in the personal lives of Prudence and Geoffrey, but I can see that that is being set up as a slow burn with the focus mainly on the mystery, which is fine since this is a mystery series. I just kind of missed them a little here because we didn't spend as much time with their perspectives.

Thanks to NetGalley and Kensington Books for giving me a copy of this book for review.

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