NetGalley ARC | The Return of the Ripper?: The Murder of Frances Coles

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I will never stop reading books about The Five and Whitechapel. We will never know who Jack the Ripper was, and so I appreciate every (sensible) theory and love to read all I can on the topic. These women deserve to have thir stories told, and while it will never happen, Jack deserves to be forgotten.

Side note: I don't like the cover. I think it is a risky game ever putting a face to a potential suspect.

As you may well know, The Five were violently murdered in 1888, with at least six additional murders occurring in Whitechapel from 1888 through 1891.

Here the author makes the case for the murder of Frances Coles being one of the victims. Her body was found in February 1891, yet another bloody and violent death. For many at the time, it looked eearily familiar and residents worried that the Ripper had returned - if he'd ever left in the first place.

The difference between Coles and the other women, however, is that there was a serious and viable suspect for her murder. In that case we are left wondering if he was Jack the Ripper (he couldn't have been, as he was at sea during some of the murders), if he worked with Jack the Ripper (unlikely. That psychopath would not have had a partner), or if this was a stand-alone event (most likely). Yet James Sadler was never convicted of murder and the case remains unsolved (I'm pretty sure he did it).

My main issue with assigning some or all of these additional murders to Jack is that some simply do not fit. By the time Mary Kelly was murdered, Jack had been escalating - and very quickly. I can't even look at the autopsy photos, even in black and white. They're horrific. I think it is possible another serial killer was operating in that period and after Jack 'stopped', but I do not think Coles is a victim of either.

So, in the two years between Kelly's murder and that of Coles, we either have to believe that he suddenly stopped killing for whatever reason (left London, was imprisoned, died), or that he de-escalated (while all murder is terrible, some of the women killed in that period were not subjected to the violence that Kelly in particular was).

There are so many variables to consider - more than I have laid out - and this case will forever hold a place in the collective heart of crime and true crime fans because we so badly just want to KNOW. If we can identify the monster, we know what to look out for. But we can't, and so everyone is suspect.

The author takes a deep look into the murder of Coles; roughly half the book is spent there. We move through the case with the police, from the discovery of her body up through the inquest. he details the evidence against Sadler and explains how the case fell apart and why Sadler was never convicted.

Turton does an excellent job transporting the reader to the slums of Victorian London, a place I would love to see with my own eyes but then leave just as quickly as I arrived. Whitechapel itself remains an endless source of fascination for me, what it must have been like to work and survive in such a place.

While I do not agree that Coles was a Ripper victim, I appreciate the research that went into this text, because there is a plethora. In addition to laying out the case, or no case, for Coles being one of the victims, the author provides maps and images, as well as brief list of all involved in one capacity or another.

Half the book is dedicated to Coles, the other half is a profile of Jack and delves into the murders of The Five. Here the author shows how Coles' death might be connected, but also why some of those connections do not actually work. He also does this, less in-depth, with a few of the other murders considered the to be part of the ten 'Whitechapel Murders' (The Five are included in that count).

I do not believe Coles was a Ripper victim, but I appreciate the time and attention she was given here. All of these women, whether they were victims of the Ripper or not, were some of the most vulnerable in society. For decades no one cared because they were prostitutes, so obviously they had it coming, right? WRONG. All of these women mattered, and even though justice is no longer possible, they were living, breathing human beings who deserved so much better.

Recommended.

NetGalley ARC | One-Armed Jack: Uncovering the Real Jack the Ripper

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐

While I am not convinced of the author's conclusion, this was still a highly interesting read. First though, let's be clear: plenty of authors over the years have identified who they think Jack the Ripper is. Nor is Hyam Hyams a new suspect by any means - I have read his name many times in various readings and websites dedicated to unmasking the most infamous serial killer of all time. She is not the first person to try to identify a killer, and she will not be the last.

However, I appreciate Horton's approach and it does makes sense - though she does what so many others do as well, only keeping the evidence that fits her theory and dismissing anything that doesn't fit the pattern as being wrong or irrelevant.

Horton has background as a government researcher so her skill in researching and analyzing information is useful here. She takes a deep dive into eye-witness accounts of the man/men who were in the area at the times of the murders who could have potentially been the killer, and compares it with Hyams medical records. She makes much use of witness statements that described a man with distinct physical characteristics and makes the connection to Hyams, whose left arm had been broken and not healed properly. She makes the case that this injury, which made it impossible for him to work throughout 1888 was a trigger that sent him on a murderous rampage. She adds that both the physical ailment of the broken arm and the mental ailments caused by his epilepsy contributed to his ensuing violence.

Horton attempts to use the evidence to explain the hows and whys that have dogged us for nearly 140 years. She resconstructs each event, explaining how Hyams was able to accost his victims, get them to another location, and how he attacked them and then escaped undetected. They are certainly interesting theories, but hardly as conclusive as the author would have you believe. The point I certainly agree with is that whoever Jack was, he escalated in his attacks and grew more and more violent in his destruction of his victims' bodies.

Side note: the author includes Martha Tabram as a Ripper victim, so discusses six murders instead of the typically accepted five.

I am not convinced, though the author does make a decent case. Ultimately, I have finally accepted the fact that we will simply never know the Ripper's identity. Maybe this is why no matter what book I read that claims to have determined who he was, I will never completely buy in. Part of the issue here is that the author has a lot of circumstantial evidence. She has theories and fits in evidence where it seems to make sense, but then dismisses evidence that does not, but never explains why it can be dismissed. There were also times Horton contradicted herself, yet I still enjoyed the book due to the focus on the transcripts of witness statements and their testimonies at the inquests.

My issue with the crime scene reconstructions is that they are purely speculation even though the author seems to imply this is how things pretty much went. It's very true that each murder could have happened exactly the way the author purports. But it's also entirely possible that she is way off the mark. We will simply never know. It is frustrating when any author claims to have conclusively solved this perplexing case. I also struggle when authors atempt to apply thoughts or feelings to anyone when there is not concrete evidence to support what they're claiming.

One thing the author did extremely well is bringing Whitechapel to life. We are completely immersed in the environment where these women worked and lived and ultimately, died horrific deaths. There's so much information here about the various locations, and one feels like they are there in the moment with the police, trying to catch a killer before he strikes again. There are familiar street and pub names, ones that anyone familiar with the Ripper will recognize. You are walking the streets with the inhabitants of Whitechapel as they go about their days, in most cases just trying to survive.

Overall I can say I would recommend this one for anyone interested in seeing more clearly how Hyam Hyams could be a viable candidate as Jack the Ripper. Horton is not the first to submit this name for consideration, but she makes enough of a case here that he can be considered.