Customer Reviews

Ripper Notes: America Looks at Jack the Ripper

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Very well written, Holds your attention, doesn't go on about insignificant items,covers a wide variety of suspects both favoured and those who have not gotten much press. A fabulous job on the Carrie Brown murder.The rediscovered Dr.Robert Anderson is certainly a must read,I had not read this before.
All in all, good writing covering several ripper stories as seen in the eyes of America resulting in an excellent read.
I would highly recommend this edition of Ripper Notes.

This regards Ripper Notes issue 19, from July 2004. I've read all the Ripper Notes journals from issue 19 to the present. I purchased/read this one last because the sub-title didn't really appeal to me. Unfortunately the title is rather misleading as I didn't get much of exactly _how_ "America looks at JtR" out of the articles, which are generally well done. I think this is the first edition that Dan Norder begins as editor. Here's the rundown:
1. A brief article on a 1892 interiew of Dr. Robert Anderson with short history on his careers.
2. This is the serious meat of the issue, a 50 page article which is actually part 3 of Wolf Vanderlinden's look into the NYC Carrie Brown murder with suspects and how it might be connected with JtR as well as a well researched look at Ameer Ben Ali, forced suspect by police to 'out do' Scotland Yard. Very well done.
3. A lengthy article on how technology is going to affect JtR research. I felt this was much longer than it needed to be and grew bored with this article.
4. A look into non-suspect Dr. Hewitt and comparing 'laughable suspects' to serious top suspects and how there's really no true way to rank them other than "gut feeling".
5. A one page mention of the Baltimore JtR Conference.
6. A 'Lusk Kidney Revelation'; did it come from Eddowes or possible as a prank from some local medical students?
7. Comparing a 2003 Philadelphia slaying to JtR as well as the Badlands sector of Philly to Whitechapel, very brief article by a first time submitter to Ripper Notes.

Basically, the bulk of the journal is taken by the Carrie Brown article which is quite good and followed by an unnecassarily tedious technology article which in turn detracted from the issue. Other articles were short to the point of being filler. This was just an okay issue for me with Wolf's article being stellar.