The Pleasures of Men by Kate Williams

The Pleasures of Men by Kate Williams
Genre: Mystery, Fiction, Historical
Format: Paperback
Rating: **
Bought at Barnes & Noble
The Pleasures of Men

Summary:

July 1840: The young Queen Victoria has just entered her third year on the throne, when a major recession brings London's desperate and destitute into its sweltering streets. While the city crackles with tension, orphaned Catherine Sorgeiul stays locked away in her uncle's home, a peculiar place where death masks adorn the walls and certain rooms are strictly forbidden. Nineteen years old and haunted by a dark past, Catherine becomes obsessed with a series of terrible murders of young girls sweeping the city. Details of the crimes are especially gruesome - the victims' hair has been newly plaited and thrust into their mouths, and their limbs are grotesquely folded behind them, like wounded birds - and the serial killed is soon nicknamed the Man of Crows.

Catherine begins writing stories about the victims - women on their own and vulnerable in the big city - and gradually the story of the murderer as well. But she soon realizes that she has involved herself in a web of betrayal, deceit, and terror that threatens her and all those around her.

The 9th Girl by Tami Hoag

The 9th Girl by Tami Hoag
Genre: Crime Fiction, Mystery
Format: Audiobook
Rating: +++
Bought at Barnes and Noble
Good Reads The 9th Girl

Summary:

On a frigid New Year's Eve in Minneapolis, a young woman's brutalized body falls from the truck of a car into the path of oncoming traffic. Questions as to whether she was alive or dead when she hit the icy pavement result in her macabre nickname, Zombie Doe. Unidentified and unidentifiable, she is the ninth nameless female victim of the year, and homicide detectives Sam Kovac and Nikki Liska are charged with the task of not only finding out who Zombie Doe is but who in her life hated her enough to destroy her. Was it personal, or could it just have been a crime of opportunity? Their greatest fear is that not only is she their ninth Jane Doe of the year but that she may be the ninth victim of a vicious, transient serial killer they have come to call Doc Holiday.