The Lodger by Monica Belloc Lowndes

So what do you do if you have the strong suspicion that Jack the Ripper might be the bloke renting your upstairs bedroom? Definitely not go to the police, according to the respectable ex-servants Mr. and Mrs. Bunting. (The murderer is called 'The Avenger' in the story and the location of the murders is shifted to Marylebone/King's Cross, but it's basically exactly Jack the Ripper). This is a pretty creepy novel about a couple who keep a lodging-house, where a mysterious Mr. Sleuth has just rented rooms, and his landlady, Mrs. Bunting slowly begins to realise that he is the perpetrator of the terrible murders that are fascinating all of London. What I liked most about the book is the window it opens on the lives of a certain class of people in Victorian London (I guess they could be called the upper lower class). The Buntings have an instinctive distrust of the police, and value their reputations above all else. Even though Mrs. Bunting knows almost certainly the the lodger is the Avenger, she does not go to the police, because she fears the publicity and bad reputation it will bring to the family, she does not seem to consider the very substantial reward for information offered. The newspapers play a huge role in the novel, and it was fascinating to read how the rhythms of life are dictated by newspapers and the hunger for news that possesses people, as well as the hunger for sensation that they simultaneously condemn. It's a psychologically unsettling novel, it's almost impossible to point out the instant when Mrs. Bunting's suspicion becomes a certainty. Eventually, her husband also starts putting together the pieces, and there's a moment when they look at each other and they just know that the other knows, but they never actually discuss it. It's fairly terrifying to think that these respectable people become almost directly responsible for brutal murders by not turning the criminal over to the police, but they don't seem to think about it, or don't want to face it. I didn't get particularly attached to any of the characters, but it was a very exciting and interesting read.