It is August, 1898 Vienna, and four people are dead.  It seems that a serial killer is on the loose, although the only things the victims have in common are the brutal way in which they are murdered and the place where their bodies are dumped.  The papers are calling the killer “Vienna’s Jack the Ripper.”  Then there is a fifth victim, Liesel Landtauer, a model for artist Gustav Klimt.  Klimt’s lifestyle and art are considered scandalous by Viennese society, making him the perfect suspect for the crimes.  Klimt’s lawyer and friend, Karl Werthen, agrees to help clear his name.  Werthen, along with his mentor Dr. Hanns Gross, discovers that the current murders may be related to the mysterious 1889 murder/suicide of Crown Prince Rudolph and his mistress, Baroness Marie Vetsera, at Mayerling.

The Empty Mirror is the first installment in a new series featuring Karl Werthen and Dr. Hanns Gross, the real-life “father of criminology”, who was the inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. Werthen and Gross are tenacious investigators following the leads to the highest levels of Austrian society, even when it puts their own lives in danger.  J. Sydney Jones’s vivid writing immerses the reader into 1898 Vienna.  The plot is interesting and complex, leaving the reader unsure as to how the mystery will finally be resolved.  The Empty Mirror is an enjoyable start to the new Viennese Mystery series.