The Jekyll Revelation

A spellbinding thriller from the bestselling author of The Einstein Prophecy.A chilling curse is transported from 1880s London to present-day California, awakening a long-dormant fiend.While on routine patrol in the tinder-dry Topanga Canyon, environmental scientist Rafael Salazar expects to find animal poachers, not a dilapidated antique steamer trunk. Inside the peculiar case, he discovers a journal, written by the renowned Robert Louis Stevenson, which divulges ominous particulars about his creation of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It also promises to reveal a terrible secret—the identity of Jack the Ripper.Unfortunately, the journal—whose macabre tale unfolds in an alternating narrative with Rafe’s—isn’t the only relic in the trunk, and Rafe isn’t the only one to purloin a souvenir. A mysterious flask containing the last drops of the grisly potion that inspired Jekyll and Hyde and spawned London’s most infamous killer has gone missing. And it has definitely fallen into the wrong hands.

From Publishers Weekly

The coincidence of the opening of a stage adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with the first Jack the Ripper murder provides an intriguing starting point for Masello’s engaging thriller. In 1894 on the island of Samoa, where Stevenson has moved for his health, the writer learns that a native woman has been butchered in the same way as the Ripper’s victims. Stevenson fears that the nightmare he thought had ended in Whitechapel has come halfway across the world “to resume its dreadful enterprise.” The focus shifts to an environmental scientist in present-day California, then back to Stevenson’s creation of his legendary personification of human evil in the late 19th century. The relevance of the present-day action isn’t immediately clear, but readers’ patience will be rewarded. The sections featuring Stevenson undergoing an experimental treatment at a Swiss medical facility are nicely creepy, and Masello (The Einstein Prophecy) tosses in quite a few surprises en route to a delightfully devilish conclusion.

From Booklist

Alternating between past and present, Masello’s (after The Einstein Prophecy, 2015) latest offers another look at Jack the Ripper’s identity and his origins. Rafe Salazar, a Bureau of Land Management employee who makes a meager living tracking coyotes, spends his time between his rented trailer in Topanga Canyon and camping in the wilderness, hoping to observe enough about the coyotes’ behavior to make a compelling case for their welfare. The discovery in a lake of an old trunk containing Victorian clothes and a well-worn journal, while unexpected, connects Rafe to Robert Louis Stevenson’s struggle to treat his tuberculosis and further his writing career. Stevenson’s journal reveals his treatment in an isolated mountaintop village by an unorthodox doctor who provides him inspiration for his classic, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The journal goes on to disclose his continued recovery in London while Jack the Ripper terrorizes the city. Readers will find themselves immersed in both stories, past and present, as the journal entries and current events intertwine for the novel’s fiery conclusion.

About the Author

Robert Masello is an award-winning journalist, television writer, and bestselling author of many novels and nonfiction books. His most recent novels, published in more than a dozen languages, include The Einstein Prophecy, The Romanov Cross, The Medusa Amulet, and Blood and Ice. His guide to composition, Robert’s Rules of Writing, has been adopted in many college classrooms. His articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in prominent publications such as the Los Angeles Times, New York magazine, People, Newsday, and the Washington Post. A long-standing member of the Writers Guild of America, he has taught and lectured at colleges and universities nationwide, including the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He also served as visiting lecturer in literature at Claremont McKenna College for six years. A native of Evanston, Illinois, Masello now lives and works in Santa Monica, California.

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