A review by rachelagain
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold

5.0

An essential text for anyone interested in the true crime genre (particularly the ethics of focusing on murderers instead of their victims) or Victorian London. Rubenhold critically examines what is known, unknown and assumed about the canonical five victims of Jack the Ripper - although the book focuses far less on the details of their deaths than on the poverty, housing insecurity and addiction that rendered them vulnerable to such horrific violence. It was pleasing to see that Rubenhold doesn't stigmatise past or present sex workers in the book but rather interrogates the economic and social factors that left them with no other means to support themselves.