Jack the Ripper - A Smorgasbord of Suspects

Book excerpt: Jack the Ripper was a serial killer active in the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. There were five 'canonical' murders of an unusually brutal nature. What makes the grisly saga of Jack the Ripper so enduringly famous and fascinating is that the case was never solved. To this day people are still coming up with new suspects and trying to solve this most famous of cases. The Ripper was not only lethal but remarkably clever or lucky at remaining undetected. This killer was definitely not someone you would wish to meet on a dark and misty Whitechapel night. In the book that follows we'll take a look at Ripper suspects and attempt to gauge who is credible and who isn't to see if we can make any sense of this most puzzling (not to mention harrowing) unsolved true crime case.