Ripper by Isabel Allende

by:   Isabel Allende
published by:  Harper
publish date:  January 28, 2014

For Amanda Martín and her friends, Ripper was all just a game. But when security guard Ed Staton is found dead in the middle of a school gym, the murder presents a mystery that baffles the San Francisco police, not least Amanda’s father, Deputy Chief Martín. Amanda goes online, offering ‘The Case of the Misplaced Baseball Bat’ to her fellow sleuths as a challenge to their real-life wits. And so begins a most dangerous obsession.

This was my first time reading an Isabel Allende book and I wasn't really blown away.  First, I will say that I had a hard time keeping all the characters straight.  I felt like there were too many.  Maybe in print it wouldn't have been such a problem because I could have flipped back and forth, but with audiobooks you don't have that luxury.  Secondly, I thought the book would focus mostly on the Ripper game.  It seemed like that was more of a side note to the story.  Yes, it helped solve the mystery, but the bulk of the story didn't revolve around the game as I had hoped it would.  

The story mostly involved Amanda's mother, Indiana, and her relationships with the men in her life.  Indiana was a bit of a hypocrite to me and I didn't particularly care for her.  I also didn't care for her choice in men, but I guess that's what made the book readable.  The twists were quite surprising, so it did make the "whodunit" pretty hard to guess.

While, I didn't find this book too terribly bad, I don't think I'll be rushing out to read another Isabel Allende book.  Kari attempted this book too and she didn't care for it.  She's posting in our DNF post at the end of the month, so you can check out her thoughts on it then.