For Miv and her best friend Sharon, life is changing. Embarking on secondary school and the trials and tribulations that come with teenage life should be enough stress for the two girls to handle, but throw in the fraught race relations of 70s and 80s Yorkshire, and the looming presence of The Ripper himself, and the pair have plenty to get up to.

Jennie Godfrey’s novel throws us into a Yorkshire wrestling with its changing identity through Miv’s young eyes, who narrates the events of her childhood retrospectively. This is a thrilling novel as Miv and Sharon, horrified by the Ripper’s actions, set out to try and catch them themselves, forming their ‘suspicious list’ of anyone, anywhere or anything that seems out of the ordinary. Godfrey’s novel is a unique look at one of the country’s darkest times, exploring not just The Ripper’s growing notoriety but also the changes to Yorkshire itself as its community becomes increasingly diverse. It is an unflinching look not just at the impact the Ripper’s murders had, but also upon the racism, domestic abuse and individual traumas the characters experience that perhaps went unnoticed at time where the nation, and especially the North, was gripped by fear of the serial killer among them.

Godfrey’s novel includes a cast of likeable characters, with Miv and Sharon’s changing friendship taking centre stage, alongside Miv’s troubled father and Auntie Jean, yet individuals such as Mr Bashir, his son Ishtiaq and others like Helen and Hazel who all help to create the book’s rich environment. It is a shame that some of the crueller characters are reduced more to two-dimensional villains, but maybe that is Godfrey’s point. Perhaps we should not remember The Ripper, but instead remember the lives of those he impacted, and the lives lost or missed out on.

‘The List of Suspicious Things’ is an easy read with a lot of heart. There is enough suspense in it as, like Miv, you connect the dots between characters, and its moving climax will stop you in your tracks. A treat and one that will stay with you for a long time.