From 1975 to 1980, a horrendous murderer by the name of Peter Sutcliffe terrorised Yorkshire by killing no less than 13 women (some of them prostitutes) and severely injuring several others.

He was referred to as the Yorkshire Ripper because, like the infamous Jack the Ripper, Sutcliffe (who was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic when finally caught) considered himself to be on a mission to rid the world of prostitutes.

The author of this interesting debut novel, The List of Suspicious Things, Jennie Godfrey grew up in Yorkshire at that time and, following the murderer`s arrest, her entire family was horrified to find that Jennie`s father, who worked as a mechanic, had actually serviced Sutcliffe`s lorry from time to time! Decades later, this point inspired Godfrey to set this coming-of age novel against the grim and foreboding backdrop of the Yorkshire Ripper`s crimes. Although his presence in the novel is relatively passive (in that he is not an actual character, and is generally mentioned on and off as a gruesome news item), Sutcliffe still casts an ominous shadow over much of the book`s plot. The action takes place between 1979 and 1980 -Sutcliffe was finally apprehended and arrested in January, 1981.

The central character is a 12-year-old named Miv (short for `Mavis`) who is as intrigued by the grisly crimes of the Ripper as most individuals in her small community. Godfrey does a very fine job of portraying a working-class Briton community in a small Yorkshire town; in spite of their mundanity, her characters are well-sketched and the tragedy and pathos underlying their existence lends considerable momentum to the narrative.

Miv`s father Austin, and his sister Jean, take care of the child because, for the major part of the novel, her mother Marian is presented as a seriously depressed individual who can barely bring herself to interact with anyone.

But Austin and Marian are by no means the only miserable couple in the book. The librarian at the school attended by Miv gets regularly battered by her husband. A Pakistani shopkeeper in the town has to combat both racism as well as the trauma of having lost his beloved wife. A stressed-out teacher at Miv`s school is estranged from his wife, and even an aged dealer in `shoddy` (cheap fabric made from scraps) is described as still mourning for a spouse he lost decades ago.

The dysfunctionality does not stop at sad partnerships. A couple of the boys at Miv`s school are serious bullies (to the point where their actions end up being dangerous and life-threatening), a depressed young man who is questioned by the police during the hunt for the Ripper ends up committing suicide, and a young girl is sexually molested by a repressed and twisted man.

The most positive influence in Miv`s life is her best friend and fellow schoolmate Sharon, a sweet and innocent child who genuinely cares for Miv. Perhaps it is partly due to childhood curiosity and partly to distract herself from the emotional bleakness of her existence that Miv convinces Sharon that they should make a list of people in their town who might potentially be the Yorkshire Ripper! Batty and hilarious though this scheme might seem to some, I personally found nothing remotely funny about two school-going girls playing detective on such a dangerous front. Especially when Miv gets carried away to the point where she makes a trip with Sharon to a redlight area in Leeds known to have been one of the Ripper`s haunts in the past! Fortunately, while the duo are at Leeds, a good-natured and intelligent prostitute named Maggie ensures that the police return both girls to their hometown.

Sharon eventually convinces Miv to abandon the list-project, which the latter fortunately does. However, although Godfrey never describes any of the actual murders, they continue to take place and are regularly mentioned on the news. But what Jennie Godfrey does describe with vivid clarity are other crimes in Miv`s town, such as the racist destruction of a store by means of arson, sexual harassment and rape, domestic violence,a death by hanging in the local forest, and hazardous substance-abuse.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, West Yorkshire was famous for its textile mills, but the old mill in Miv`s town was shut down long ago, and one suspects that when the town lost that industry, it lost much of its positivity.

Miv has several happy memories of her mother but we do not find out until very late in the novel why Marian found it so difficult to cope with life that she silently retreated into herself for a number of years.

Exasperating though the novel`s protagonist might be, one finds it impossible not to feel sorry for her, especially since one gets the sense that Miv would have been a far more well-adjusted child under more sanguine circumstances.

Much of the novel is written in first person and Godfrey is to be credited with accurately portraying the pre-teen angst of a child whose lively intelligence can find few healthy outlets, if any. The conclusion of the book contains a brilliant plot-twist that is as heart-warming as it is unexpected. But the book also sustains its sense of tragedy until the very end; its most vital lesson being that escaping from the clutches of the Ripper does not equate to escaping from other forms of harrowing trauma and violence.

In spite of the limited geographical scope of the book, it underscores how certain human emotions such as love, hatred, fear and sorrow remain timeless and exist across diverse cultures. Driven by paternal love, the Pakistani shopkeeper Omar Bashir struggles against overwhelming social odds to provide his son Ishtiaq with sound education and a comfortable existence. Equally driven by paternal love, the librarian`s old father protects her from a cruelly abusive spouse when the situation becomes untenable.

As to whether Miv`s mother eventually realises whether her daughter`s well-being is worth overcoming her own depression is a question that can only be answered by readers perusing the novel for themselves. I can guarantee, however, that that will be a literary exercise that is worth their time.

The reviewer is associate professor of social sciences and liberal arts at the Institute of Business Administration. She has authored two collections of short stories, Timeless College Tales and Perennial College Tales, and a play, The Political Chess King