The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper by
Maxim Jakubowski
pbk out March 99
(Robinson)
at £7.99
Do we really need yet another book about the Whitechapel murders? It is a
fair question: the shelves of many a true crime buff must groan under the
weight of books about Jack the Ripper and frankly the quality of many of
those books is, to say the least, undistinguished. Yet there is no more
point in seeking a moratorium on theorising about the Ripper than there is
in trying to turn back the incoming tide. The simple truth is that the
mystery exerts an irresistible fascination and that, quite apart from any
other consideration, the quest to identify the world's most renowned serial
killer has become a game at which anyone with a sufficiently outlandish
theory can play. That very point is, indeed, made on occasion in this new
anthology, notably by the well-known writer M.J. Trow, who asks: "isn't it
easy - frighteningly easy - to put a man in the frame?"
In putting together the book, the editors have managed to hit upon an
original - and, even, better, very sensible - approach which lifts their
contribution to Ripperology far above the mundane. They start with a crisp
account of "undisputed facts" and a selection of "key texts", which are
followed by sixteen views of the case by present day commentators. The
latter are not uniformly as persuasive as the editors claim: for instance,
the apocalyptic essay by Simon Whitechapel is, one hopes, a pseudonymous
spoof. The other contributors include Peter Turnbull and Colin Wilson,
both of whom have, like Trow, written noteworthy crime fiction, and Shirley
Harrison, renowned for her involvement with the controversial "Ripper
Diaries", allegedly penned by James Maybrick. Wilson, incidentally, makes
it plain that he is impressed by the Diaries, despite their questionable
provenance. Indeed, even a sceptic must concede that, if the idea that
Maybrick - whose wife was famously sentenced to death for his murder,
although she earned a last-minute reprieve - was the Ripper was a hoax, it
was nevertheless a brilliantly conceived and executed hoax.
The book is completed with accounts of other suspects - and possible
additional victims - and a bibliography and filmography. There is even a
report of weather conditions at the time of the murders. Whatever
reservations one may have about the Ripper industry, this balanced and
intriguing anthology represents one of the most worthwhile contributions
to it in recent years.
(
Martin Edwards
- author of the highly acclaimed Harry Devlin Mysteries)
