LOST AND GONE FOREVER, the fifth installment in Alex Grecian’s Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad series, is amazing. I was hooked from the start and have happily introduced the series to several friends --- and I’ll be keeping up that tradition with this latest book as well.

Picking up where THE HARVEST MAN left off, Inspector Walter Day is missing, and Sergeant Nevil Hammersmith is fresh out of a job due to his rash behavior while working the last suspected Ripper case. He decides, with the help of Day's wife, Claire -- who believes her husband is very much alive, even though Scotland Yard has said that the case has gone cold --- to open his own private detective agency. His sole mission, and the only one truly paying the bills beyond a few lost-and-found cases that his two barely-paid but very resourceful employees have solved, is the search for Day. Even Hammersmith is starting to think that Scotland Yard might be right about Day being gone forever.

"Grecian doesn't write a simple, straightforward thriller. Rather, he sends readers on a circuitous, oftentimes terrifying, trip through the seedy neighborhoods of London and lets them peer into the dark, hidden world of a secret society."

While a new missing persons case leads Hatty Pitt, one of Hammersmith’s employees, on a strange chase, a series of odd and very vicious murders appear around London. Meanwhile, unknown to anyone, Day has been released by his captor, the good ole Saucy Jack, who is quietly skulking around London with plans of his own. The same goes for Claire’s father, Leland Carlyle, the leader of a secret society that once held Jack the Ripper captive; his plans involve a ruthless couple with their own murderous agenda.

With Jack the Ripper roaming the city streets once more, and a new couple hired to kill him, victims are aplenty. Scotland Yard has its hands full, and even when credible evidence surfaces that Day is alive and well and living in London, no one has the time to look into the case, until Hammersmith convinces them otherwise. When every player in this crazy game being manipulated by Saucy Jack converge on a new emporium in London, death and destruction reign on the city, leaving everyone questioning what happened --- and no one can, or wants to, believe the truth.

I've said this once before about this series: It's not about Jack the Ripper, yet he plays a larger-than-life role. Grecian takes the character we know and turns him into even more of a monster, if you can believe that. His Jack the Ripper is devious, deranged and deadly. The way he's manipulated Day, the cruel and demeaning torture, and how he revels in his sadistic behavior make him a thing of nightmares. And the reason you'll keep reading, greedily devouring pages and wanting to know what's going to happen.

Grecian doesn't write a simple, straightforward thriller. Rather, he sends readers on a circuitous, oftentimes terrifying, trip through the seedy neighborhoods of London and lets them peer into the dark, hidden world of a secret society. If you like thrillers, get this series now. Seriously! It is so very wonderful and makes for perfect binge reading.

Audiobook available, read by John Curless