Fanny Newcomb and the Irish Channel Ripper

by Ana Brazil

Overview

A Jack the Ripper copycat is terrorizing the women of Gilded Age New Orleans.

 

Desperate to know if her favorite student was a Ripper copycat victim, tenacious and quick-witted Fanny Newcomb turns detective. 

Fanny's hunt launches her into New Orleans' darkest enclaves, saloons, and houses of prostitution. She questions authority, seeks out clues, and digs into long-protected secrets.

Fanny's search alienates her friends, alarms the police, and antagonizes her would-be fiancé. Her efforts infuriate the Ripper copycat, who vows to murder another of Fanny's students by the end of the week.

Fanny persists, and even appears to succeed in her investigation, until the night her curiosity plunges her into a desperate confrontation with the Ripper copycat.

Can amateur detective Fanny Newcomb stop the Irish Channel Ripper before he murders again?

 

~Winner of the Independent Book Publishers Association 2018 GOLD for Historical Fiction~

 

FANNY NEWCOMB & THE IRISH CHANNEL RIPPER is a ripping good read. Author Ana Brazil brings the dark underbelly of Gilded Age New Orleans vividly to life as her trio of determined female sleuths seek out a Jack the Ripper copycat killer.
     --Ann Parker, author of the award-winning Silver Rush series

Product Details

BN ID:	2940164502195
Publisher:	Ana Brazil
Publication date:	04/05/2022
Sold by:	Draft2Digital
Format:	eBook
File size:	560 KB

About the Author

Ana Brazil writes historical crime fiction about the emotions that drive bodacious women to confront their unique moment in history. 

Her short stories include “Kate Chopin Tussles with a Novel Ending” in Fault Lines: Stories By Northern California Crime Writers and “Miss Evelyn Nesbit Presents” in Me Too Short Stories: An Anthology.

Ana has a Master’s Degree in American History, is active in the Historical Novel Society and Sisters in Crime, and is a founding member of the Paper Lantern Writers author collective.

Editorial Reviews

From The Historical Novel Review...

Fanny Newcomb has come to New Orleans in 1889 to teach business courses at Wisdom Hall Settlement House. She has been hired by sisters Olive and Sylvia Giddings, daughters of a wealthy family, who have recently established Wisdom Hall to provide medical care and education to poor immigrants arriving in New Orleans. Olive and Sylvia hope that it will eventually become “a glorious edifice of immigrant education.”

Fanny is happy to be earning a living, even though using a new-fangled typewriter is proving to be harder than she had expected. She enjoys teaching the young women who mostly come from the Irish Channel (here politely described as ‘roguish’) until one of her students is murdered.

The murdered woman, Nora, came from Ireland and became a prostitute in New Orleans. She had been one of Fanny’s most promising students, and Fanny had hoped for her to move along to a useful career. The man accused of her killing is Karl, a skilled carpenter from Germany who is helping to build Wisdom Hall to the impressive standards demanded by the sisters. Fanny, shocked by the killing and unable to believe Karl capable of such brutal behavior, decides to prove his innocence.

Ana Brazil takes the reader for a clear-sighted visit to the seamier side of Gilded Age New Orleans. Fanny and the Giddings sisters visit brothels and pornography studios in their search for the killer, aware of police corruption and mixed messages coming from the Church. The author leaves us with no illusions about the uglier side of New Orleans at the time.

This book is a promising start from a new author, who has introduced many engaging characters together with an incisive picture of the sordid lives of some of New Orleans’ immigrants.

Historical Novel Review

From the Publisher