What book u reading at the moment?

[Sicknero]

The Complete History of Jack the Ripper by Philip Sugden, third edition revised and with a new introduction.

So far it's definitely shaping up to be a cut above most of the utter piffle that gets published on this abiding mystery.

*Edit; What makes Neverending think that an author is plugging her own book here? Just curious...*

[neverending]

Is this the book by the author that had first access to the original police files that were unsealed after 100 years? If so, that book is great. Remember reading it years ago when it first came out.


As for your question- 90% of new authors come in here posing as a random reader that was so amazed by this incfedible book by an author nobody ever heard of that they just had to find a forum to join and talk about it. It's happened so many times it's just too obvious. Somebody out there is giving really bad advice to new authors that they should logon to forums and lie, in order to publicize their work. It's really bad advice and only works out poorly in the long run.

[Sicknero]

That might be Trevor Marriot you're thinking of. He fought an expensive and unsuccessful legal case with Scotland Yard to get classified papers released - the papers in question are something like 900 pages of information collected from informants between 1888 and 1912, some of which might relate to the Ripper inquiry. Iirc he did get them to name four "new" suspects, but that was all.

His books aren't really taken very seriously though, sorry to say. He's a bit sloppy with his facts and is also one of those writers who claims to have solved the case which generally results in an unfavourable reputation among serious historians.

His most recent theory is that there was no Jack the Ripper, and that the whole thing was cooked up by journalists from a handful of unrelated killings.


Thanks by the way - I was just curious if you knew something we didn't :)

[neverending]

No, that's not the book I'm thinking of. I remember quite clearly the author claimed to have first looks at previously unreleased files, and I thought I remembered the title was The Complete Jack the Ripper.

[neverending]

Here's the one I meant. I recommend it.

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Jack-...ack+the+ripper

[Sicknero]

It could well be this book then, I'm only half-way through chapter 1 so far.

In the introduction he talks about how when he wrote the first edition, there were no surviving inquest records for Emma Smith, but after publication he discovered that there were notes from such records, in the private collection of another writer.

It looks to be a good read anyway, he seems to be a respected writer on the subject.

*Edit - thank you! That does look like a good one too.

[neverending]

See post above.

[sfear]

I read the earlier version. Highly recommended.

[MichaelMyers]

Half-way through Under the Shanghai Tunnels. Wow, what a disturbing tale! Had to put it down to collect myself.

Don't want to give anything away but I definitely think a sequel has to be in the works based on Mary's Harbor Lodge. I don't think we've seen the last of her (is the pit a metaphor for her dominion, I wonder...). In the meantime, I don't see how Lee and Wilson escape this book alive, at all.

[neverending]

I'm glad you're enjoying the story! I'm not in it though. :p