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rachelcabbit's review
4.0
A fascinating look at the unsolved and oft ignored series of murders that took place prior to, during and after Jack the Ripper's reign of terror in Victorian London.
Dismembered bodies turned up in the Thames 15 years before Jack started slashing prostitutes in Whitechapel.
This book looks at what remains of this crime, how it was handled and where we could possibly find the killer. With so little evidence and no CSI technology, it is impossible to know for sure, but Trow does a fine job clearing away the unlikely suspects.
There's a good deal of reference to the Ripper's murders and some great explorations of London's rivers and buildings, the hierarchy of prostitution in Victorian London, the psychology of serial killers and references to murders elsewhere in past and present.
I found this book fascinating and informative. I found a lot more than what I was expecting!
Dismembered bodies turned up in the Thames 15 years before Jack started slashing prostitutes in Whitechapel.
This book looks at what remains of this crime, how it was handled and where we could possibly find the killer. With so little evidence and no CSI technology, it is impossible to know for sure, but Trow does a fine job clearing away the unlikely suspects.
There's a good deal of reference to the Ripper's murders and some great explorations of London's rivers and buildings, the hierarchy of prostitution in Victorian London, the psychology of serial killers and references to murders elsewhere in past and present.
I found this book fascinating and informative. I found a lot more than what I was expecting!
elegantmechanic's review
mysterious
medium-paced
1.0
Short, disappointing, doesn't really go anywhere. It's only 155 pages but is nevertheless heavily padded out. If we're being generous, there's only 100 pages on the torso murders in here with the rest dedicated to irrelevant summaries of unrelated cases in different eras which do nothing to illuminate the supposed subject of the book.
There's a chapter summarising Jack the Ripper, a chapter listing various known lunatics of the time who couldn't have been the torso killer, a chapter of pure speculation which is rapidly presented as fact about a "cats meat man" suspect who cannot even be shown to have existed.
The writing style is dull which makes the occasional out of place humorous asides and sudden ironic exclamation marks when the author thinks he has hit upon a wry observation all the more jarring. I didn't get anything out of this to make it a keeper.
There's a chapter summarising Jack the Ripper, a chapter listing various known lunatics of the time who couldn't have been the torso killer, a chapter of pure speculation which is rapidly presented as fact about a "cats meat man" suspect who cannot even be shown to have existed.
The writing style is dull which makes the occasional out of place humorous asides and sudden ironic exclamation marks when the author thinks he has hit upon a wry observation all the more jarring. I didn't get anything out of this to make it a keeper.
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