Your Most Recent Ripper Book : Your Views- 2/18/2011

[Howard Brown]

Thread for suggesting, critiquing, or discussing the most recent Ripper book that you've read..be it fact or fiction, suspect related or general, a revised edition of a previous work, or a specialized volume...as of February 18, 2011.

[admin tim]

The Ripper book I have read most recently is Martin Fido's book - The Crimes, Detection, and Death of Jack the Ripper. I guess all of the good titles had already been taken.

I found it a good read, as one would expect, but it is sadly dated and contains much misinformation as has been discussed here in its own thread.

Truth is, I don't read many Ripper books since so many of them simply aren't worth reading. Portrait of a Killer and Uncle Jack come to mind, and these are just the tip of that iceberg.

[Paul]

Originally Posted by admin tim

The Ripper book I have read most recently is Martin Fido's book - The Crimes, Detection, and Death of Jack the Ripper. I guess all of the good titles had already been taken.

I found it a good read, as one would expect, but it is sadly dated and contains much misinformation as has been discussed here in its own thread.

Truth is, I don't read many Ripper books since so many of them simply aren't worth reading. Portrait of a Killer and Uncle Jack come to mind, and these are just the tip of that iceberg.

Unfortunately, one has to read them to find out that they aren't worth reading!

Whilst I don't think Sickert was remotely likely to have been Jack, and I think the postiveness of the conclusion was a mistake, as Patricia has acknowledged, saying that she would not call any future edition 'Case Closed', throwing modern forensics at the case was a good idea and a new edition of her book may yet produce some interesting bits of information. Overall, it was an engaging, page turning read.

Uncle Jack was considerably less readable and why the publisher picked it up was and is a mystery to me as the evidence for Williams being the Ripper would have been extraordinarilly slender even if it had all been rock solid.

The thing is, it's not so much the books which aren't worth reading that we need to worry about, but rather those that [I]are[I] worth reading and why. For example, I'd put Robert McLaughlin's book very high up on my list of must reads, although it is a specialist book.

[Mike Covell]

I am currently re-reading The Scarlet Thread, Australia's Jack the Ripper, A True Crime Story, by Maurice Gurvich and Christopher Wray, Fairfax Books, 2007. It's all about Deeming and his life and crimes. It's a good read but there are quiet a few errors, the most comical being a typo that states Deeming was alive and sailing in 1899! I ordered this from Australia last year and with packaging it cost very little to ship it so it was a good little bargain.

The other book I am re-reading is also about Deeming, and is called, A Most Unique Ruffian, The Trial of F.B. Deeming, Melbourne, 1892. By J.S.O'Sullivan, FW Cheshire, 1968. Whilst older and with the occasional claim lifted from an erroneous press source it is still better than the previously mentioned Deeming book.

I also read Stones of Law and a square of Hedon Sky, by Stephen Wade, which is a history of Hull Prison. The book was a big let down, with the history comprising five bullet points on one page! There was a small section on the alleged paranormal events witnessed at the prison, and a chapter on notorious inmates that featured only two notorious inmates! These were Ethel Major and Frederick Bailey Deeming. Stephen Wade has covered Deeming in the past, he has also covered Walter Sickert and has obviously read Cornwell's book has he believes that Sickert killed John Gill!

I also read Richard Jones Haunted Britain, AA Books, 2010. It's a great read, more so because some fellas called Philip Hutchinson and Mike Covell are mentioned in the book.

[Nemo]

The worst ever has got to be that Psychic Investigation one...

The last Ripper book I dipped into was by Peter Underwood and I've been reading a book about historic massacres and atrocities which includes significant ones in the LVP, in Europe, Africa, USA and Asia

[Paul]

Originally Posted by Nemo

The worst ever has got to be that Psychic Investigation one...

Death of a Prince or Jack the Ripper A Psychic Investigation?

[Nemo]

The Psychic Investigation, I haven't read the Death of a Prince, is that based on psychic insights

[Howard Brown]

Neems,Paul...

I enjoy reading anything about the Case because I get ideas for threads or something within the text of whatever I'm reading encourages me to go back and rethink something or the other....but the Psychic Investigation was simply so hard to read, I had to put that book down. As you know, I like to engage in "Read to me ,Howie.." with Nina...affecting a British accent and pretending to be the characters in the books I read....but even affecting a Central European, Maria Ouspenskaya accent while reading the Psychic Investigation didn't help. Even though I look like her and wore a babushka didn't cut it.

"Hush, my dollink Nina...you vill leesen to de words in Psychic Infestication and you vill rise with the full moon and under its schpell, shave your hairy legs and be less like de Vulfman..."

[Paul]

I met Pam Ball several times at lunches at Cam Woolfe's with Loretta and others and she was always very good and generous company. She's done a lot of books about spells, so [I]like [I] her book! It pays to play safe.

Neems,
The other book was a readable but bizarre book about a groupd of AUstralian women on a psychic tour of Britain who allegedly picked up psychic traces of Jack. I won't say any more. Libel and all that.

[Mike Covell]

I have a lot of Pamela Ball's books on spells and dreams. I like to know what the hell I am dreaming about because it rarely makes sense.