Jack the Ripper

by Daniel Farson

An aging British policeman recounts his experiences investigating the Jack the Ripper case, and leaves clues to the murderer's identity.

Genres: History, True Crime, Biography, Crime

12 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1973

Reviews

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although this is now over thirty years old it is still a very interesting read and highlights a number of suspects, some of which have since been showed entirely innocent and others that haven't been talked off much since. Farson has obviosuly researched his subject well and takes the reader through the case step by step, setting the scene, describing the murders and detailing the suspects before he concludes with the most likely candidate and why. He supports his conclusions with evidence and extracts from interviews but does really on a letter and document that has since disappeared that he only has notes of so the grounding of his conclusions is a little shaky. Once again though there is little effort to go back before the murders themselves and try to use behaviour from the suspects' childhoods and adolescent misdemeanours to support the conclusions made, as is done with modern day murderers. Otherwise this is a very interesting work that shows how much and how little progress has been made on solving the mystery of Jack the Ripper.

[Andrea Hickman Walker · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly old book, this has as plausible an explanation as any I've read (and I've read a few). I'm not completely convinced, though I think the explanation put forward here is possibly the most well-researched and well-thought out of any. There are parts of it I agree with, such as the murderer only stopping because he died. There are also parts I disagree with completely, such as the idea that the murderer's first attempts were as successful as his later ones. No researcher seems to take any practice into account. I cannot believe that he did not make some mistakes when he first began to kill. A must-read for anyone interested.