Jack the Ripper
The Forgotten Victims
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Two Ripper experts examine unsolved murders—from Great Britain and around the world—that occurred during the era of the notorious killer.
The number of women murdered and mutilated by Jack the Ripper is impossible to know, although most researchers now agree on five individuals. These five canonical cases have been examined at length in Ripper literature, but other contemporary murders and attacks bearing strong resemblance to the gruesome Ripper slayings have received scant attention. These unsolved cases are the focus of this intriguing book.
The volume looks at a dozen female victims who were attacked during the years of Jack the Ripper's murder spree. Their terrible stories—a few survived to bear witness, but most died of their wounds—illuminate key aspects of the Ripper case and the period: the gangs of London's Whitechapel district, Victorian prostitutes, the public panic inspired by the crimes and fueled by journalists, medical practices of the day, police procedures and competency, and the probable existence of other serial killers. The book also considers crimes initially attributed to Jack the Ripper in other parts of Britain and the world, notably New York, Jamaica, and Nicaragua. In a final chapter, the drive to identify the Ripper is examined, looking at suspects as well as several important theories, revealing the lengths to which some have gone to claim success in identifying Jack the Ripper.
"When it comes to the meticulous details of a murder, the minute-by-minute examination of a crime and its policing, Messrs. Begg and Bennett are the very best in the true-crime genre."—Judith Flanders, Wall Street Journal
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After 125 years, and dozens of books about the notorious Ripper murders, it's a challenge to come up with a new angle, but experts Begg and Bennett, who previously collaborated on Jack the Ripper: CSI: Whitechapel, successful tread new ground in this thought-provoking book. They focus on women murdered around the time of the so-called Autumn of Terror of 1888 who are generally not considered to be actual Ripper victims. The authors note that most serial killers often begin with crimes lacking all the signature element of their patterns, and argue it's a mistake to exonerate Jack the Ripper off-hand, just because the mutilations differed. Refreshingly, they don't try to advance a new suspect, on the basis of evidence that could only be circumstantial. Instead, they do a convincing job of debunking myths, such as the existence of an extortionate street gang at the time called the High Rips. More importantly, they demonstrate that, whatever the Scotland Yarders of the day wrote, there is no definitive answer as to how many women the sadistic Whitechapel murderer slaughtered.
