Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19986 in Books
• Published on: 2002-02-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 544 pages

Fortean Times, August, 2002
'The book's reputation is well deserved, so you should seize this additional opportunity of acquiring your own copy at a very reasonable price.'

Synopsis
A comprehensive account of London's celebrated East End killer, revised and updated. The murders in London between 1888-91 attributed to Jack the Ripper constitute one of the most mysterious unsolved criminal cases. This story is the result of many years meticulous research. The author reassesses all the evidence and challenges everything we thought we knew about the Victorian serial killer and the vanished East End he terrorized.

Customer Reviews

A very inciteful read.....
I've read a fair few books on this subject over the years and thought that i'd heard all the theories and read all there was to read but this book managed to surprise me. If you only read one book on this case then this has to be the one, it covers every detail, not just of the murders themselves but of the police investigation, the so called eye-witnesses all aspects of the case that most books seem to skirt over. The most helpful thing about this book is that the author does not try to persuade you in any way to buy into yet another crackpot theory, he just presents the facts very concisely and leaves the reader to make up their own mind. A must have book for any amateur ripperologist!

Very detailed but beware of the details!
This book is very detailed but you have to be wary of the slants. Sugden writes witness Matthew Packer down and dismisses his important testimony, and he also leaves out an important section of a letter that was published in the Telegraph in November which alludes to the capture of the killer (the "hideous bellowing of the news boys" letter). He also gets the Hanbury Street writing wrong. This was "Five - another fifteen and I give myself up." Sugden has it has "Four - another sixteen and I give myself up" - an absurd message which gets the total right but has changed the compenents to fit the assumption that the Fairy Fay murder did not happen. I find the book fairly morbid and irksome to read, and this is not because of the fascinating subject matter but the way that it is written. This subject needs a sharp-eyed Daniel Defoe, or a Jack the Ripper A-Z with all the rubbish taken out.

meticulous balanced account
Having read a book on Jack the Ripper by a less competent investigator, of which I have provided a less than complimentary review (see my other Amazon reviews), I was given this book as being the best account of the Ripper facts.

This book is indeed a comprehensive account of the surviving documentary evidence on the Whitechapel murders, starting out with an open, balanced and factual view rather than with a conclusion to be proven.

Sugden chronicles each of the murders in detail, talking a little also of the relevant social factors within the community, as well as the contemporary politics working within and around the investigation. He concludes by providing an interesting analysis of the case against each of the favourite Ripper candidates.

My only criticism of his approach, is that for Ripper amateurs such as myself, who are less familiar with the incidents, it is easy to become lost amongst the facts of different murders. There is little overview of the case and sometimes it becomes difficult to see how the facts are associated to one another, in order to build a case within one's own mind.

Nevertheless, this is an excellent compilation of the facts of the Ripper case. Sugden is balanced and does not resort to grandiose claims of having solved the mystery, instead meticulously tackling the facts on their own merit. Although its strength is in the comprehensive detail, those new to the subject might be wary that this in itself might be a disadvantage to them.