A review by mahmabaer
The Complete Jack the Ripper by Donald Rumbelow

challenging dark informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

5.0

This book is a challenge because it is truly dark.  It deals not only with the horrific fate of many poor and destitute women (not just the canonical five) and their grisly ends, but also gives a wide spectrum of suspects, as well as the facts both for and against their favorite.  At times, Mr. Rumbelow is bitingly sarcastic in his disdain for the nonsensical drivel that has become imbedded in the Ripper case (Oscar Wilde?  Arthur Conan Doyle?  Aliens?!) and at other times, gives other investigators their dues in the work they themselves have put forth.  He gives more facts than rhe reader can handle (or want) about the murders, the world they took plac  in (being the slums of 1888 London) and what has come from it -- from comedies to comic books yo chilling copycat murders over more than a hundred years.  An excellent, though disturbing, book that will leave you with no answers, but still more questions.