2.5 stars.

This book is a mix of fact and fictionalised interactions between the characters which I feel detracts from a book purporting to identify the man who was Jack the Ripper. At times it seems like the author was in two minds as to whether to write a Ripper or a biography of the two Sun journalists, who investigated Cutbush and published their stories in 1984.
As with most Ripper books any evidence suggesting the authors preferred suspect might have been the Ripper is used and any which isn't is disregarded.

For example:
1. The killings of Alice Mckenzie and Frances Coles are widely thought not to be Ripper murders, whilst the murder of Martha Tabram is. David Bullock includes these two and states Martha Tabram could not have been a Ripper victim because the modus operandi was different and yet later in the book states because Cutbush stabbed two women from behind in the bottom he was the Ripper – a more different MO could not be imagined. These instances are also thought to be an imitation of an earlier series of stabbings in the same suburb by Edward Colicott.
2. The “Dear Boss letters” are generally accepted to be the work of a journalist and not Jack the Ripper.
3. At the time of the murders Cutbush was 23 years of age, younger than the eyewitness descriptions of the Ripper, and lived in Kennington, some distance from Whitechapel.
4. Is it feasible that a serial killer would remain dormant for two years, then re-emerge only to stab women in their bottoms?
5. It is also debatable as to whether Cutbush was actually the nephew of the late Superintendent Executive, Charles Cutbush who retired from the Metropolitan Police in August 1891 and committed suicide in May 1896. It has been reported that the family tree of both men has been traced to their great great-grandfathers, without an ancestor in common.

The book would also have befitted from the inclusion of maps showing the locations of Cutbush’s alleged crimes, including the other incidents cited in the book as proof that he was the Ripper. ( )