The Jack the Ripper murders of 1888 continue to exert a macabre hold on the collective imagination of the masses more than a century later, and this book, the result of extensive research, sheds some light on them. Among the first serial murders, their brutality and bizarreness begged questions such as What kind of person could have performed such horrific deeds? and How could they not have been caught by the huge police effort? The...