JTR The Whitechapel Murderer

[Mike Covell]

The full title really drew my attention and the blurb sounded quite intresting so I purchased this for for just £5.00!
Although it is listed as JTR The Whitechapel Murderer, some sites have "Tales of Mystery and Supernatural, Jack the Ripper, The Whitechapel Muderer".
This however seem's to be a series of books, of which this book is a part of!

That said, the book is not bad, ok it has it's fair share of errors, but I have yet to read a ripper book that doesn't have at least one error.
There are also area's in the "Suspect" section were certain people will not agree with Terry Lynch's view on people such as Druitt.

The cover looks like he has copied and pasted several of the "Victims Photo's" of the casebook's very own "Victims Section".

The pictures inside are small and difficult to see, many of which have either pixelation as if they are taken from a website, or anomalies as if the printing process could not handle the number of pics!

The book is well set out, but if you have "Letters from Hell", "The Ultimate JTR Sourcebook" and "The Facts" It's really not worth getting.

Lynch claims most of the research is his own, and even states that his book is "unquestionably the most strongest and most comprehensive book on the subject"

Jack the Ripper, The Whitechapel Murder
Terry Lynch
Wordsworth Editions
2008

[Dan Norder]

Two of the images on the cover aren't even the people the photo credit line claims they are. Ouch.

[m_w_r]

Hi,

I thought it might be entertaining to have a closer look at the cover of this book. As Dan suggests, there are a couple of problems.



All six images, tagged on the back cover as showing "just some of the Ripper's victim's", are obviously copied from the Victims section here on Casebook (link). The ones of Ada Wilson (middle row, right) and Elizabeth Jackson (bottom row, centre) are, as the person who designed the cover may well be aware, artist's renditions - you might just be able to see where the Casebook asterisk in the lower right corners of each of these pictures has been excised.

So - not a very good start.

In addition - the author makes a case for Elizabeth Stride (top) not being a Ripper victim, which in itself is not an especially extreme view, but, since she is therefore hardly a keystone in the book's argument, it seems like a strange decision to put her on the front. It also contradicts the suggestion on the back cover that the pictures are of "some of the Ripper's victim's". On the other hand, the author also comes to the conclusion that Alice McKenzie (middle row, left) and Frances Coles (bottom row, right) were not Ripper victims; and he does not mention Ada Wilson, Carrie Brown (bottom row, left) or Elizabeth Jackson at all. In total, then, precisely none of the women pictured on the front cover are described as Ripper victims in the text. The women who are described as Ripper victims in the text do not appear on the front cover.

All this is to say nothing of the text and theory, some of the former having been lifted practically whole from the A-Z, the latter being (perhaps consciously) eccentric. I should perhaps say that this book is not Wordsworth's (the publishers) typical fare - they usually turn out cheap-ish editions of texts in the public domain, and I do not know that they have ever published original research, and I have often bought their editions in the past, and have found them to have become increasingly responsible and authoritative. But I hesitate to recommend this one, and would be interested to hear what others think.

Regards,

Mark

[Dan Norder]

I can't recommend it. While the author is probably not to blame for the the cover artist's mistakes, the contents just don't seem worth it. All it has is old, already well known information, quite a lot of misinformation, and a bunch of speculation that just doesn't hold up to the evidence or even a basic reality check.

[Mike Covell]

The phrase "Never judge a book by it's cover" springs into mind, then you read it and realise that in this case, you really should.
My main problem was the use of shoddy pictures inside. They look like third generation copies and are really awful!
Not to mention the authors boasts about being the most detailed book and blah blah blah!

Usually I treasure my ripper books, but I read this, put it down and forgot about it, until my son found it and made a makeshift tunnel for his toy cars!

[Christine]

Even weirder than stealing someone else's fake pictures is the fact that of the four of the five borrowed photos are not in the C5, and the one that is in the C5 is the most disputed of the bunch. Plus some of these questionable cases would exclude most of the suspects, notably the murder of Carrie Brown.

[vol_cat]

I recently bought this book for two dollars. Early on I realized that it was not a must read. I am interested however in all the questions that the author raises. One selling point of the book is the time lines that are provided for the C5 deaths. I knew all the time but it is helpful to see them in outline form.

[Madam Red]

Did someone hire Nick Simmons to do the art cover?

I really can't believe this. I hope Casebook does something about it.

At least I now know who created those awesome photos.

[Sister Hyde]

well that book was pretty worthless indeed, i got it from my ex partner about 2 years ago i read it in one night and i didn't learn anything new. it just summarises the enquiry. period.

[TomTomKent]

Its a shame as the series has reprinted some fairly neat stuff, like the works of Henry James and the original annonymous Sweeney Todd.