Jack the Ripper in Fact & Fiction

In the autumn of 1888 the streets of London were streets of terror. The cause — a series of mysterious and apparently motiveless murders. Respectable citizens cowered behind shuttered windows and multi-locked doors. Ironically, however, it was not the respectable who were in danger. The victims were all drawn from the trade which necessity still compelled to haunt dark alleys and doorways at dead of night — the prostitutes. Theories on the identity of the murderer have been many and various: that he was a fashionable doctor, even that he was a she – a midwife. Robin Odell has produced an absorbing factual reconstruction of all the crimes and a brilliant new theory, based on modern methods of detection, to solve the greatest mystery in British criminology. Most readers will accept his theory as the long-sought answer to a baffling real-life whodunit: as the most likely epitaph on a terror known as “Jack the Ripper in Fact & Fiction”.

Author Biography

Robin Odell acknowledges his debt to the researches of the late Dr Hubert Trumper a medical practitioner in Hay-on-Wye, and the late Joe Gaute, distinguished crime historian and publisher. Their combined efforts sustained over several years brought many insights to bear on the life and trial of Major Armstrong.