Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

It is perhaps telling of our modern approach to certain beguiling questions that a series of murders committed more than 130 years ago still finds ways to take hold of a conversation when other, arguably more pressing, concerns consistently become relegated to that of whimsy and fruitless explorations.

The consistency of new books and theories concerning Jack The Ripper and his insidious crimes has become its own cottage industry, and to find something novel, an original piece of thinking is its own reward when found.

We have to understand a single point before we set foot into another person’s theories of who the killer might be, do they offer a reason why, or is it a speculation drawn out by a mind which refuses to seek its own dismissal, for to gain any truth you must be prepared to kill the theory yourself.

To stand up in a realm dominated by intentions is to make it clear you have an open mind, as well as an idea that is new, and of late it should be claimed that Hallie Rubenfold’s detailed tome, The Five is one of the most deserving of additions to any keen armchair detective’s armour and weapon. To go up against it, to add to the cannon from that point is one for a brave heart and sizeable mind.

Whilst not venturing down the same literary path as Ms. Rubenhold, Gavin Baddeley and Paul Woods’ combined intriguing sojourn into the presence of Britian’s most written about serial killer, Jack The Ripper: The Murders and The Myths, is one of insight that comes with being able to talk of the events without, like Ms. Rubenhold, giving the reader the momentary satisfaction of attributing a confirmed name in which will eventually be dismissed.

Instead, the reader is given an opportunity to sample a gift, a book of reason, not so much of why, but rationality, an examination of what has gone before and with a sense of flourish remarking on the moments as if written with one persuasive eye on the damnation felt by certain people as they discovered the gruesome spectacle revealed in late 1888.

Gavin Baddeley and Paul Woods’ work is unafraid to dent the process of older enquiries, that one of the first modern examinations of the mystery of evil, that of namely Stephen Knights’ Jack The Ripper: The Final Solution, released in 1976, was more of a work of idealised literature than a true inspection and investigation. It is to this that the pair give the reader a defining sense of modern appraisal to one of history’s most disturbing and persistent enigmas.

A decent and virtuous, blameless addition to the cannon, one that does not lead the reader down a path of recrimination of time spent in another’s mind as you inspect their own methods and assumptions for their deduction.

Ian D. Hall