The Framingham Fiend

March 15, 2018
A Victorian detective duo helps Scotland Yard solve a shocking series of murders.Colin Pendragon and Ethan Pruitt haven't always had the best relationship with Scotland Yard (The Endicott Evil, 2017, etc.), but they find consulting with Inspector Maurice Evans much easier when they assist him with what appears to be a Jack the Ripper copycat. That's fortunate, because Colin's father, Sir Atherton Pendragon, has also asked the duo to help his friend Braxton Everclear find his troubled grandson, whom he hasn't heard from in two weeks. Ethan, Sir Atherton, and Colin's housekeeper all fear for Colin's health, because he's still recovering from severe wounds he received in a case that ended with his attacker's fleeing to Switzerland. As the Ripper copycat continues to spread fear, Colin grows furious with the haughty coroner and his assistant, who have leaked information to the press. The street urchin Paul and his gang help out with both cases and continue to help Ethan when Colin collapses and is hospitalized with a life-threatening infection. Although Ethan is determined to keep the nature of his relationship with Colin in the closet, he's sure Colin would want him to carry on their work. A former opium addict himself, Ethan finds the young Everclear in the toils of the drug and doing a well-paying but dangerous job for a mystery man who comes to his apartment and murders him while Ethan is hiding under the bed. The only thing he has to go on is a view of the killer's unusual and expensive boots. The news that Queen Victoria is worried that the serial killer may be a member of her family makes Colin even more eager to return to the hunt.The duo's sixth case isn't in the same league as Sherlock Holmes, but it does present a tidier mystery than Harris' past efforts.

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April 2, 2018
In Harris’s disappointing sixth Victorian whodunit featuring Colin Pendragon and Ethan Pruitt, Pendragon is still frail after being shot twice in the chest in 2017’s The Endicott Evil. When his health worsens, Pruitt must take the lead in investigating brutal murders in Whitechapel that appear to be the work of Jack the Ripper. Though the partners know that the real Ripper is confined to an asylum, they have kept that fact secret because they lacked enough evidence to charge him criminally. Meanwhile, the public and the press fear that the serial killer has resumed his butcheries, and Queen Victoria worries that a grandnephew, Gerhard, who stabbed a fellow student at the Royal College of Surgeons, may be responsible. Many other authors have used the possibility of royal involvement in the mutilation murders of prostitutes in the East End in their Ripper fiction, and despite references to Pruitt’s history with opium addiction, he comes across as fairly colorless. Readers will hope Harris gives his Holmes-and-Watson-like duo a more original case next time. Agent: Kathy Green, Kathy Green Agency.