Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38214 in Books
• Published on: 1981-05-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Customer Reviews

My verdict: OK
I brought this book around a week ago from the shop...; and, have only just now finished reading it...; after finding it very difficult, indeed, to go put down. I think the reason why I went and brought the book in the first place was to find out exactly how Peter Sutcliffe/The...so-called...Ripper himself thinks??? But, unfortunately, this book did very little to teach me about how he himself actually thought(perhaps, nobody knows for sure-that is, apart from the actual man himself). The book did explain a bit about how he was brought up(quiet/shy/reserved/scared enough to go skip school)/what his adult jobs were(including grave digger/long distance lorry driver-he cried when the boss, sometimes, told him off)/he got married/his wife suffered multiple miscarriages/he was a regular pub drinker/though married he also slept with whores/-etc. Too, it explains just how much police work went into catching him (including after being given totally false leads, such as the well publicised tape -Geordie voice- recording/letters/-etc.). It's also revealing in describing more about who the Rippers victims were...explaining what kind of lives they lived either before they were killed off/or else, after they were attacked(because some of his victims -around 6- did actually manage to survive-going on to live broken lives, afterwards). The guy didn't just kill prostitutes, apparently; he also killed girls who he merely thought looked like prostitutes; but, in reality, were not. At the end of the book for me there were many questions still left wholly unanswered...such as, exactly...why...did he do it??? And, do it so vehemently as to go stab someone multiple times for?! To know that I suppose he would have to give a personal interview to this books author...which, quite obviously, he did not do. In many ways the book left me with a deeply unsatisfied feeling that I wanted to know more about The Rippers own internal thinking...and, not just about what all of the others thought (including, police/press/victims/his wife/his family/friends/judge/jury/-etc). All in all, though, a good read...; and, a great introduction to the story.

Gives you the bare bones facts
This book is OK in that it gives you the facts, but like another reviewer said, it doesn't really try and explore the psychology of the serial killer. I would have liked something more detailed with comparisons to other similar cases and more thought about psychology, etc. It's obviously written by a journalist, he gives you the facts but remains on a relatively superficial level.

On a side note, the quality of the photographs in the paperback version is absolutely appalling, they look like cheap photocopies.

The Full Story: The Hunt For Peter Sutcliffe
This is an excellent book for non-fiction and true crime lovers, anywhere. It has a full account of each murder in turn and delves deeply into all aspects of the case, eventually leading upto the accidental arrest of the Ripper. The back cover is eerily impressive: the photos of the thirteen unfortunate victims: WILMA McCANN, Oct. 75; EMILY JACKSON, Jan. 76; IRENE RICHARDSON, Feb. 77; PATRICIA ATKINSON, Apr. 77; JAYNE MacDONALD, Jun. 77; JEAN JORDAN, Sep/Oct. 77; YVONNE PEARSON, Jan. 78; HELEN RYTKA, Jan. 78; VERA MILLWARD, May 78; JOSEPHINE WHAITAKER, Apr. 79; BARBARA LEACH, Sep. 79; MARGUERITE WALLS, Aug. 80 & JACQUELINE HILL, Nov. 80.