On the Trail of Jack the Ripper

Book excerpt: For 132 years the ghastly and horrific murders committed in London's East End by the infamous 'Jack the Ripper' have gripped and baffled the world. The Ripper commenced his series of atrocities at the end of August and continued freely until the beginning of November 1888 when inexplicably the murders stopped... In all, five women were brutally murdered and savagely mutilated in the most unimaginable way. The killing spree centered in and around the impoverished rabbit warren of alleys and rookeries of Whitechapel. The invisible killer was never caught despite the very best intentions of the police and thousands of would be detectives following the grim proceedings. Since those dark days of murders committed by gaslight, the mystery of Jack the Ripper has become the ultimate cold case among crime historians and arm chair researchers worldwide, with a multitude of books, plays and dramas all hoping to solve what London's finest Victorian detectives failed to do... Given the space of time much has changed and the crime scene locations and landscape in which the Ripper and his victims would known would be in many parts unrecognizable to them. Equally to the modern day Londoner or visitor the locations would be very much largely unknown... until now. True Crime and Social historians, Richard C Cobb and Mark Davis, return to the Whitechapel of 1888 to see what remains from this dark time in London's history and to take the reader on a step-by-step tour of the modern world of Jack the Ripper, giving a detailed history of the victims, the crimes and the police investigation. We also look at other victims (outside the accepted five ) which may have been killed by the same man. Using the original police reports, state of the art photographs, unseen images and diagrams, they present the truth about what actually happened in the autumn of 1888 and what remains of Jack the Ripper's London today. They also focus on the ever changing face of London's End End, giving the reader a real sense of how the past meets the present in arguably London's most vibrant and cultural quarter... where the shadow of the Ripper is never too far away.