Book Review: The Five

Crime in Victorian England fascinates me. I have never really focused on the Jack the Ripper cases, however. During my 2017 European trip, I passed on an opportunity to take a guided walk along Jack the Ripper's London. Instead, I chose a museum walking tour. This book, The Five, details the lives of the five victims of this notorious criminal. While many assume that all the victims were prostitutes, that was not true.

Historian Hallie Rubenhold introduces Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine, and Mary-Jane. She intersperses their tales with historical details to bring the Victorian era and the plight of the poor to life. Instead of being selected for selling sex, Rubenhold argues the Ripper likely chose these women because they were sleeping rough. Mary-Jane was the only one murdered in her bed. The rest of the women were lying in some hidden alleyway, some too drunk to register danger. What a sad, gruesome story. Evil manifests in every age and poverty renders far too many vulnerable.