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Stephen Hunter

I, Ripper: A Novel Hardcover – Box set, May 19, 2015

by Stephen Hunter (Author)

3.9 778 ratings

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“[A] dark, bloody triumph...convincingly mad, alternatively even-tempered, hallucinatory and cackling...the book’s characters are great, its race to capture the murder is beautifully tense, and it has one of the best twists I can remember in any recent historical thriller.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Absolutely riveting....Authentic in tone, well researched, and darkly atmospheric of Victorian London, this historical thriller combines the quiet plausibility of the psychopath in Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon (1981) with the menacing tone of Kenneth Cameron’s The Frightened Man (2009).” —Booklist

The electrifying new thriller from New York Times bestseller Stephen Hunter takes you deep inside the mind of the most notorious serial killer of all time: Jack the Ripper.

In the fall of 1888, Jack the Ripper slaughtered five prostitutes in London’s seamy Whitechapel District. He did not just kill—he ripped with a butcher’s glee—and then, after the particularly gruesome slaying of Mary Jane Kelly, he disappeared. For 127 years, Jack has haunted the dark corners of our imagination, the paradigm of the psychotic killer. We remember him not only for his crimes, but because, despite one of the biggest dragnets in London history, he was never caught.

I, Ripper is a vivid reimagining of Jack’s personal story entwined with that of an Irish journalist who covered the case, knew the principals, charted the investigation, and at last, stymied, went off in a bold new direction. These two men stalk each other through a city twisted in fear of the madman’s blade, a cat-and-mouse game that brings to life the sounds and smells of the fleshpot tenderloin of Whitechapel and all the lurid acts that fueled the Ripper headlines.

Dripping with intrigue, atmosphere, and diabolical twists, this is a magnificent psychological thriller from perennial New York Times bestseller Stephen Hunter, who the San Francisco Examiner calls “one of the best storytellers of his generation.”

Print length

320 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Simon & Schuster
Publication date

May 19, 2015
Dimensions

6.5 x 1.25 x 9.75 inches
ISBN-10

9781476764856
ISBN-13

978-1476764856
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“[A] dark, bloody triumph . . . convincingly mad, alternatively even-tempered, hallucinatory and cackling . . . the book’s characters are great, its race to capture the murder is beautifully tense, and it has one of the best twists I can remember in any recent historical thriller.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Add Sherlock Holmes, deductive reasoning, a classic frame-up, spot-on Cockney dialogue, erudite social observations, and pervasive anti-Semitism, and Bob's your uncle. Hunter solves the crime, and the Prince of Wales wasn't the culprit.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Intriguing… details such as the ingenious speculations about the graffiti message that the murderer left on the night he slaughtered two prostitutes are sure to fascinate Ripperologists.” —Publishers Weekly

“Absolutely riveting. . . . Authentic in tone, well researched, and darkly atmospheric of Victorian London, this historical thriller combines the quiet plausibility of the psychopath in Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon (1981) with the menacing tone of Kenneth Cameron’s The Frightened Man (2009).”—Booklist

About the Author

Stephen Hunter has written over twenty novels. The retired chief film critic for The Washington Post, where he won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism, he has also published two collections of film criticism and a nonfiction work, American Gunfight. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

I, Ripper

CHAPTER ONE

The Diary

August 31, 1888

When I cut the woman’s throat, her eyes betrayed not pain, not fear, but utter confusion. Truly, no creature can understand its own obliteration. Our expectation of death is real but highly theoretical until the moment is upon us and so it was with her.

She knew me but she didn’t know me. I was of a type, and having survived on the streets for years, she’d cultivated the gift of reading for threat or profit, deciding in a second and then acting accordingly. I knew in an instant I’d passed beyond the adjudication and represented, in her narrow rat brain of what once was a mind, the profit, not the threat. She watched me approach, along a dark street that had subtended from a larger thoroughfare, with a kind of expectant resignation. She had no reason to fear, not because violence was rare here in Whitechapel (it was not), but because it was almost always affiliated with robbery, as strong-armed gang members from the Bessarabians or the Hoxton High Rips struck a woman down, yanked her purse free, and dashed away. Crime, for the working population of the streets, meant a snatch-purse with a cosh, and he would be some kind of brute, a sailor most likely, or a large Jew, German, or Irish Paddy with a face like squashed potato. I had none of these defining characteristics but appeared to be some member of a higher order, to suggest service in a household or some low retail position. I even had a smile, so composed was I, and she returned that smile in the dimness of a crescent moon and a far-off gaslight.

I know exactly what she expected; it was a transaction as ancient as the stones of Jerusalem, conducted not merely in quid but drachmas, kopeks, pesos, yen, francs, marks, gold pieces, silver pieces, even chunks of salt, pieces of meat, arrowheads.

“Want a tup, guv’nor?” she’d say.

“I do indeed, madam.”

“It’s a thruppence for what’s below, a fourpenny for me mouth, darling. My, ain’t you a handsome bloke.”

“Jenny in Angel Alley offers her lips for a thruppence flat,” I would dicker.

“Then off to Jenny in Angel Alley and her fine lips, and don’t be bothering me.”

“All right, we’ll rut front to back. A thruppence.”

“In advance.”

“Suppose you run?”

“Ask ’em all, Sweetie don’t run. She does what she’s signed for, fair and square.”

“So be it.” And with that the coin would be granted, a niche against the wall found, the position assumed, the skirts lifted, and I was expected to position myself suchways and angled so as to achieve fast entry. The system was not designed to accommodate finesse. Of foreplay, naught. The act itself would resolve into some sliding, some bucking, some in-out–in-out in the wet suction of the woman’s notch, and I’d have a small but reinvigorating event. I’d feel momentary bliss and step back.

“Thank you kindly, sir,” she’d say, “and now Sweetie’s off.”

That would be that—except not this night.

If she had words to speak, she never spoke them, and that half-smile, in memory of a woman’s comeliness, died on her lips.

With my left hand a blur, I clamped hard on her throat, seeing her pupils dilate like exploding suns—that to steady her for the next, which was contained in the strength and power of my stronger right hand. At full whip, I hit her hard with the belly of the blade, the speed, not any press or guidance on my own part, driving the keen edge perfectly and carrying it deep into her, sundering that which lay beneath, then curling around, following the flow of her neck. I hit my target, which Dr. Gray has labeled the inner carotid, shallowly approximated in the outer muscle of the neck, not even an inch deep. It was good Sheffield steel, full flat-ground to the butcher’s preference, my thumb hooked under and hard against the bolster for stability. There was no noise.

She meant to step back and had more or less begun to sway in that direction when I hit her again, the same stroke driven by full muscle, with all the strength in my limb against it, and opened the second wound near perfect upon the first.

Blood does not appear immediately. It seems as if it takes the body a few seconds to realize it has been slain and that it has obligations to the laws of death. She stepped back, and I gripped her shoulder as if we were to waltz, and eased her down, as if she’d just fainted or grown a bit dizzy from too much punch before the spin upon the floor among the lads and lasses.

Meanwhile, the two streaks that marked my work reddened by degrees, but not much, until they each looked like a kind of unartful application of a cosmetic nature, some blur of powder or rouge or lipstick. Then a drip, then a drop, then a rivulet, each snaking slowly from the lip of the cut, leaving a track as it rushed down the tired old neck.

Sweetie—or whatever, I didn’t know—was attempting to say something, but her larynx, though undamaged by the anatomical placement of my strikes, would not cooperate. Only low murmuring sounds came out, and her eyes locked all billiard-ball on infinity, though I do not believe she was yet medically dead, as she had not lost enough blood from her brain as yet.

That issue resolved itself in the next second. The severed artery realized what its interruption required and at that point, at last, begin to spurt massively. Torrent to gush to tidal wave, the blood erupted from the full length of each cut and obeyed gravity in its search for earth in which to lose itself. I laid her down, careful not to let the surge flow upon my hands, even though, like all gentlemen, I wore gloves. In the moonlight—there was a quarter moon above, not much but perhaps just a bit—the liquid was dead black. It had no red at all to it and was quite warm and had a kind of brass-penny stench, metallic, as it rose to meet my nostrils.

She lay supine, and her eyes finally rotated up into their sockets. If there was a moment of passing or an actual rattle, as the silly books claim, I missed it clean. She slid easily enough into a stillness so extreme it could not but be death.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1476764859
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster; First Edition (May 19, 2015)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781476764856
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1476764856
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.25 x 9.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,398,689 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #9,441 in Historical Thrillers (Books)
- #12,022 in Mystery Action & Adventure
- #19,952 in Thriller & Suspense Action Fiction

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3.9 778 ratings

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Stephen Hunter

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Stephen Hunter won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism as well as the 1998 American Society of Newspaper Editors Award for Distinguished Writing in Criticism for his work as film critic at The Washington Post. He is the author of several bestselling novels, including Time to Hunt, Black Light, Point of Impact, and the New York Times bestsellers Havana, Pale Horse Coming, and Hot Springs. He lives in Baltimore.

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Authentic, Bold and Fascinating

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 4, 2015

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This is a fascinating book, not just because of its content, but because of its organization and narrative strategies. In London, in 1988, there were three anniversaries: that of the defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588), that of the Glorious Revolution (1688) and that of the Ripper murders (1888). The latter drew the most attention and excitement, by a wide margin. Ripperology is now heavy industry; Hunter includes an 8 pp. bibliography and claims, in his Acknowledgments, that he has identified the Ripper. “Watch for it. It’s going to be fun,” he writes.

I, Ripper is fiction, not non-fiction, a reimagining of the manner in which the Ripper might have come to be, how and why he might have done what he did, how he was identified and the circumstances surrounding his disappearance. The answers are striking, nearly over-the-top, and—given the cultural history with which Hunter is dealing—very, very bold.

No, he doesn’t identify Queen Victoria as the Ripper, but it’s practically that striking and he does so fairly and squarely, adhering to the unofficial rule that the reader must be given all of the evidence necessary to be able to understand and solve the mystery at the story’s center.

I,Ripper has three narrators (more like 2.1). The Ripper himself has kept a diary, whose entries constitute half of the narrative. He is being pursued by an Irish journalist (nickname: Jeb) whose memoir constitutes the second half. There are also a few letters from a London prostitute, written to her mother. Their function in the story is unclear until the story’s end.

While the voices vary they are all late 19thc voices and the novel is filled with references to contemporary culture and practices. Hunter tosses off the word ‘mudlarks’, e.g. These are people who sift through the detritus of the Thames when the tide is out. His command of these details is very impressive and the number of slips can be counted on one hand.

The conclusion of the story is most impressive, as Hunter draws all of the individual threads into a single, blockbuster conclusion and subjects a villainous character to a fate that is not just appropriate but also anticipated, metaphorically and psychologically, throughout the novel.

Stephen Hunter is one of my favorite novelists and it is a joy to see him move from the world of Bob Lee Swagger to that of Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle.

Highly recommended.

23 people found this helpful

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Bill Smart

Stephen Hunter's Best!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 19, 2015

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Believe it or not, longtime fans of sniper/troubleshooter Bob Lee Swagger and his Marine Corps hero father, Earl, have a special treat coming: Stephen Hunter's newest work features neither of them, but it provides a story of stunning action and suspense. Swagger fans will not be disappointed.

For folks not familiar with the Swagger stories, this is a great place to get to know the author.

His focus this time is Jack the Ripper and the never-solved horrific murders of five prostitutes in London's Whitechapel district in the autumn of 1888.

Followers of the nearly 127-year-old Ripper puzzle will have great reason to celebrate.

The writing is on the mark! Hunter creates the sights, sounds--even the smells--of Victorian London, from the squalid, bustling streets peopled by the lower classes to the elegant homes of the upper crust.

"I, Ripper" places the reader in the middle of what's happening. You feel like you are an unseen presence in the story as it unfolds around you.

The book comprises concurrent stories: One is from the vantage of the killer. You see what he sees, hear what he hears, and experience his actions moment by moment.

The other is from the point of view of a journalist drawn into the events and determined to unravel the mystery, to identify and track down the killer.

Interspersed with the parallel tales are thoughts and concerns from the perspective of a prostitute, a young woman living and plying her trade in Whitechapel.

The juxtaposition of killer's and reporter's versions of what's playing out keeps the suspense building, up and up, and it all just seems so REAL.

Hunter's relating of the real-life events is spot on--impeccably accurate. His dramatization of the events is spine-chilling, just plain terrifying!

This is not your run-of-the-mill, by-the-recipe thriller: It is literature. Hunter writes "I, Ripper" in a beautiful 19th-century style. As the story moves forward, readers are likely to become more and more unsettled--and excited. There is real pleasure in being drawn along in the telling.

The book's conclusion offers what very possibly could be the answer to the mystery that has continued from autumn, 1888, to the present.

What is there to dislike in this dark, nightmarish story? Absolutely nothing. When this tale draws to its close, you do not want to leave.

3 people found this helpful

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I Spence

A change of pace for Hunter

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on August 6, 2015

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A rather different Stephen Hunter novel (I've read them all). This is an ingenious new look at the Ripper mystery complete with with a bold and entertaining "solution". At times, the late 19th century British voices are a little insecure, but overall this one is worth a read.

One person found this helpful

emaginaryMiker

I tried it. I liked it.

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on August 7, 2015

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I enjoyed this slightly quirky story. I thought the writer's style caught the essence of the time and the ending was ... interesting. In my view it's certainly worth a summer read.

Bruce Everitt

Bravo and Welcome Back

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on July 1, 2015

Verified Purchase

While I loved the Bob Lee saga it went on far too long and threatened its own legacy. An unexpected treasure from Mr. Hunter. Thank you.

michael Corson

... A dramatic departure from Hunter's previous books I always enjoy this author

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on September 9, 2015

Verified Purchase

Very well written
A dramatic departure from Hunter's previous books
I always enjoy this author

Pamela Scott

Okay but nothing fantastic

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 4, 2018

Verified Purchase

I, Ripper isn’t a terrible book it’s just not terribly impressive.

The book is packed with action and fast-paced as Jeb and the police start to close in on the notorious killer. There is plenty happening to hold your attention as you wonder if they will get their man and unmask him.

So why the three stars, then?

I, Ripper has a lot of violence in it, especially the chapters from Jack’s point of view. I don’t oppose violence in fiction. I read a lot of thriller so violence come with the territory. However, I felt the violence in this book was over the top at times and unassay.

There is no real character development. Jack never becomes more than a blood-thirsty monster. Even when his true identity is revealed in the final chapter. The book could have been great if Jack had been made of flesh and blood. This would have been more chilling. Instead, he’s just a bogeyman streaked in blood and gore. Even when his identity is revealed his ‘motivation’ is laughable.

I really did not like Jeb as a character. I hated the chapters from his point of view. He is pompous and full of himself and how he will unmask Jack, become a hero and how all of London will idolise him. Yeah, whatever, mate. I could not get behind him.

I, Ripper is an okay historical thriller but there are better books in the world.

3 people found this helpful

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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER ONE

The Diary

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