From Out of the Shadows Dark

Los Angeles, 1925. Against the backdrop of Lon Chaney's Phantom of the Opera is a series of bizarre murders linked with the occult. A killer is stalking the streets of the City of Angels, taunting police with cryptic clues and ciphers. While police struggle with the possibility that Jack the Ripper --or more likely, a copycat -- has emerged in the United States some thirty-seven years after haunting the streets of London's East End, a publisher of a pulp mystery magazine by the name of Louis Smithers finds himself teamed with private detective Walter Lake in an effort to stop the madman. Never mind that Lou is a little person. He has the courage and the brain to take on both the killer and his ciphers, and to follow this strange case to its equally bizarre finale.