bookblather

Much like The Five by Hallie Rubenfold, Jack The Ripper's Forgotten Victims attemps to refocus the conversation around Jack the Ripper to focus on the women who actually died instead of the men who could possibly have killed them. This book is both more extensive and less in-depth than The Five, and is less interested in the canonical five victims that Rubenfold discusses, though it does talk about their lives.

Instead, the authors go through the lives of a list of women who, at one time or another, have been claimed as Ripper victims. When they cannot talk about the woman herself (as in the case of some dismembered bodies located but never identified), they still do their best to focus the discussion on the victim and on the life she must have lived. The book is emphatically not interested in the killers, even when they were identified. Instead, the authors want to talk about the lives women in the 1880s lived and the deaths they might have died. It's a very satisfying and very easy read.

If you're interested in killers, why they kill, and who might have been responsible for the deaths of these women, you will not like this book. If you're more interested in the victims, everyday life in the 1880s, and life and death in Victorian cities, this is right up your alley.