Audrey Rose Wadsworth and Thomas Cresswell have landed in America, a bold, brash land unlike the genteel streets of London they knew. But like London, the city of Chicago hides its dark secrets well. When the two attend the spectacular World’s Fair, they find the once-in-a-lifetime event tainted with reports of missing people and unsolved murders.

Determined to help, Audrey Rose and Thomas begin their investigations, only to find themselves facing a serial killer unlike any they’ve heard of before. Identifying him is one thing, but capturing him—and getting dangerously lost in the infamous Murder Hotel he constructed as a terrifying torture device—is another.

Will Audrey Rose and Thomas see their last mystery to the end—together and in love—or will their fortunes finally run out when their most depraved adversary makes one final, devastating kill?

This was definitely a thrilling way to end the series, although the summary is a bit misleading. Split into two parts, a majority of the novel takes place in New York where Audrey Rose and Thomas are more preoccupied with fulfilling their wedding ceremony in less than a fortnight. It is simply easier for them to travel as a married couple, but of course, more romantic reasons are involved too. After everything they’d been through, they are completely confident in wanting to be with each other.

However, a wrench is thrown in to make their wedding day into a nightmare. Another nightmare is brewing with the possibility of Jack the Ripper being alive and making his way to America. I noted in Hunting Prince Dracula that it was disappointing that Audrey Rose never confronted her feelings about her brother. Here, they come in full-force as Audrey Rose finally reads the journals that Nathanial left behind and learn that he had a partner. Literally referencing Jekyll and Hyde.

Which brings to the major theme of the novel. One’s inner monster. There were sections in the previous book when Audrey Rose has a flash of the God-complex or murder-complex, whatever you want to call it. Feeling the rush of cutting a body open, the power that on flick of her knife she could end someone’s life. Brief yet intense feelings that she never dwelled upon. But seeing some of Nathanial’s journals echo some of those feelings make her fear her own darkness.

So often, these novels focus on the male love interest’s brooding fear of not being good enough because of terrible dad. Which there is some of that since Mr. Cresswell is the worst. But Audrey Rose’s darkness is more compelling and giving the appropriate spotlight as she struggles with these doubts and nightmares and only in confronting the White Light Jack the Ripper is she able to silence the taunts.

However, I did find it dragging because I wanted to get to the primary mystery of which part 2 delivered. The second part of the novel takes place at the Chicago’s Worlds Fair which I was excited about. I always believed more historical novels and romances she be set at the World Fair. There was so much excitement about the new inventions, creations and entertainment while hiding the seedy underbelly of Chicago’s anti-immigrant stance and the public’s willingness to overlook the deaths of “disposable women.”

The juxtaposition of the two added to the Jekyll and Hyde allusions, and commented on America’s serial killer myths being primary based on the Puritanical Christianity of our founders. Hence the devil in the title, and Audrey Rose’s far of her inner devil.

Being the final book, lots of supporting characters returned like Noah, the American classmate from Hunting Prince Dracula now at the Pinkerton Agency; Mephistopheles moving his circus around to spy on other acts like Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show; Liza, Draciana, Ileana, and the first appearance of Audrey Rose’s fierce, indomitable grandmother from India. Got to love a woman who casually slams door on duke’s faces, and calls her dear friend, Queen Victoria, a colonizer over a spot of tea.

The mystery remains carefully plotted, tying in with Audrey Rose’s development as she is confident in herself to not be bothered by external misogyny because she has her friends, and family for support, and the love of Thomas who shares her desire to make a more just world. By the end of her journey, she believes in herself enough to trust that her curiosity and macabre passions are a gift, not a sign of the devil because at the end life is about choice.

4 stars