{4.5 stars} 
 I've been a champion of Maureen Johnson for a long time and with The Name of the Star, it feels like she has found her true element. 
 Rory moves from Louisiana to England to intentionally attend school there and to unintentionally assist in the case of a serial killer that's re-creating the Jack the Ripper murders. The whole book is deliciously creepy. Maureen is practically Whedon-esque in her ability to combine gruesome details with pathos and humor. And while I was skeptical at the beginning about how this was going to work as a series, now I get it. Oh, how I get it. The Madness Underneath can't come soon enough.