The Ardlamont Mystery
The Real-Life Story Behind the Creation of Sherlock Holmes
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The Ardlamont Mystery
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Narrated by:
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Simon Shepherd
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By:
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Daniel Smith
About this listen
The true story of the men - Joseph Bell and Henry Littlejohn - who inspired the creation of Sherlock Holmes.
The Ardlamont murder trial, which took place in Edinburgh's High Court in December 1893, was the culmination of one of the most intriguing criminal cases in British legal history. But perhaps more remarkable than that was that it brought together the two principal real-life inspirations behind the creation of the world's favourite fictional consulting detective: Sherlock Holmes.
Joseph Bell and Henry Littlejohn were Professors of Medicine at Edinburgh University. As educators, medical trailblazers and social reformers, the two friends were pioneers in the emerging world of forensic science, and both were called as expert witnesses at the Ardlamont murder trial. Under their tutelage had been a young student named Arthur Conan Doyle. He had served as an assistant to Bell, where he was able to scrutinise at firsthand Bell's remarkable deductive powers. In fact, Conan Doyle went on to say of Bell, 'It is most certainly to you that I owe Sherlock Holmes....'
Author Daniel Smith, using original trial transcripts, contemporary newspaper reports, personal papers and other archive material, represents and reexamines evidence of the Ardlamont case, coming to his own conclusion as to just what happened in 1893.
This intriguing book also details the story of the trial itself and the parts played by Bell and Littlejohn as they opened the door to a pivotal period in the development of criminal investigation and forensic science, as well as providing an insight into the genesis of one of our greatest cultural icons.
Cover credit: Front cover portraits: Wellcome Collection (CC by 4.0).
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The Invention of Murder
- How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime
- By: Judith Flanders
- Narrated by: Jennifer M. Dixon
- Length: 19 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 98
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 81
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Story4 out of 5 stars 82
Murder in the 19th century was rare. But murder as sensation and entertainment became ubiquitous, with cold-blooded killings transformed into novels, broadsides, ballads, opera, and melodrama - even into puppet shows and performing-dog acts. Detective fiction and the new police force developed in parallel, each imitating the other - the founders of Scotland Yard gave rise to Dickens's Inspector Bucket, the first fictional police detective, who in turn influenced Sherlock Holmes and, ultimately, even P. D. James and Patricia Cornwell.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent, awesome and educational!
- By Janalyn on 03-14-20
By: Judith Flanders
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H. H. Holmes
- The True History of the White City Devil
- By: Adam Selzer
- Narrated by: David Bendena
- Length: 17 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 275
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 238
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Story4 out of 5 stars 236
This is the first truly comprehensive book examining the life and career of the murderer who has become one of America's great supervillains. It reveals not only the true story but how the legend evolved, taking advantage of hundreds of primary sources that have never been examined before, including legal documents, letters, articles, and records that have been buried in archives for more than a century.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The truth
- By Anna Fluellen on 09-08-17
By: Adam Selzer
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The Best New True Crime Stories: Small Towns
- By: Mitzi Szereto - editor
- Narrated by: Holly Palance, Phil Thron
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 55
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4 out of 5 stars 49
Whether in Truman Capote’s detailed murder of the Clutter family or Ted Bundy’s small-town charm, criminals have always roamed rural America and towns worldwide. Featuring murder stories, criminal case studies, and more, The Best New True Crime Stories: Small Towns contains all-new accounts from writers of true crime, crime journalism, and crime fiction. And these entries are not based on a true story - they are true stories. Edited by acclaimed author and anthologist Mitzi Szereto, the stories in this volume span the globe.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Crime in other countries is not my cup of tea.
- By Brenda on 01-03-21
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The Art of the English Murder
- From Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes to Agatha Christie and Alfred Hitchcock
- By: Lucy Worsley
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 214
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 191
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 190
In The Art of the English Murder, Lucy Worsley explores this phenomenon in forensic detail, revisiting notorious crimes like the Ratcliff Highway Murders, which caused a nationwide panic in the early 19th century, and the case of Frederick and Maria Manning, the suburban couple who were hanged after killing Maria's lover and burying him under their kitchen floor. Our fascination with crimes like these became a form of national entertainment, inspiring novels and plays, prose and paintings, poetry and true-crime journalism.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Should Come With a Spoiler Alert
- By Jessica on 04-15-16
By: Lucy Worsley
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The First Family
- Terror, Extortion, Revenge, Murder, and the Birth of the American Mafia
- By: Mike Dash
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 143
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 95
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 98
Before the Five Families who so notoriously dominated U.S. organized crime for a bloody half-century, there was the one-fingered, surpassingly cunning Giuseppe Morello and his murderous coterie of brothers. Born into a life of poverty in rural Sicily, Morello became an American nightmare, pioneering the bizarre initiation rituals, imaginative protection rackets, influential underworld reigns, and Mafia wars later popularized by countless books, television shows, and movies.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The truth about the origins of the American mafia
- By J. Sovar on 01-09-13
By: Mike Dash
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Murder, Misadventure and Miserable Ends
- By: Dr. Catie Gilchrist
- Narrated by: Emma Grant Williams
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 73
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 64
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 64
Most of us today rarely see a dead body. In 19th-century Sydney, when health was precarious and workplaces and the busy city streets were often dangerous, witnessing a death was rather common. And any death that was sudden or suspicious would be investigated by the coroner. Henry Shiell was the Sydney city coroner from 1866 to 1889. In the course of his unusually long career, he delved into the lives, loves, crimes, homes, and workplaces of colonial Sydneysiders.
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5 out of 5 stars
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very interesting and enlightening
- By Barbara J Allison on 08-29-19
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Mengele
- The Complete Story
- By: Gerald Posner, John Ware, Michael Berenbaum - introduction
- Narrated by: Bruce Mann
- Length: 15 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 141
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 122
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 122
Based on exclusive and unrestricted access to more than 5,000 pages of personal writings and family photos, this definitive biography of German physician and SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Josef Mengele (1911-1979) probes the personality and motivations of Auschwitz's "Angel of Death". From May 1943 through January 1945, Mengele selected who would be gassed immediately, who would be worked to death, and who would serve as involuntary guinea pigs for his spurious and ghastly human experiments (twins were Mengele's particular obsession).
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1 out of 5 stars
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ONE OF THE WORST BOOKS I HAVE EVER READ
- By PAUL on 08-02-20
By: Gerald Posner, and others
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Satan's Circus
- Murder, Vice, Police Corruption, and New York's Trial of the Century
- By: Mike Dash
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 133
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4 out of 5 stars 64
They called it Satan's Circus, a square mile of Midtown Manhattan where vice ruled, sin flourished, and depravity danced in every doorway. At the turn of the 20th century, murder was so common in the vice district that few people were surprised when the loudmouthed owner of a shabby casino was gunned down on the steps of its best hotel.
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4 out of 5 stars
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New York, N.Y
- By Robert on 07-11-07
By: Mike Dash
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Butcher's Work
- True Crime Tales of American Murder and Madness
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 119
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 104
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 104
A Civil War veteran who perpetrated one of the most ghastly mass slaughters in the annals of U.S. crime. A nineteenth-century female serial killer whose victims included three husbands and six of her own children. A Gilded Age “Bluebeard” who did away with as many as fifty wives throughout the country. A decorated World War I hero who orchestrated a murder that stunned Jazz Age America.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Another necessary work by Schector
- By Brandon on 12-27-22
By: Harold Schechter
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The Wrong Man
- The Final Verdict on the Dr. Sam Sheppard Murder Case
- By: James Neff
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 15 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
At 5:40 a.m. on July 4, 1954, the mayor of Bay Village, a small suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, received a frantic phone call from his neighbor Dr. Sam Sheppard. The news was too terrible to comprehend: Marilyn, Sam's lovely wife, was dead, her face and torso beaten beyond recognition by an unknown assailant who had knocked Sam unconscious and escaped just before dawn. In the adjacent bedroom, Chip, the Sheppards' seven-year-old son, had slept through the entire ordeal. Almost immediately, the police began to suspect Sam Sheppard.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding! But troubling
- By Tyree on 09-26-22
By: James Neff
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Killers of the Flower Moon
- The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
- By: David Grann
- Narrated by: Will Patton, Ann Marie Lee, Danny Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 22,552
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 19,767
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 19,722
In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An outstanding story, highly recommended
- By S. Blakely on 06-22-17
By: David Grann
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The Devil's Gentleman
- Privilege, Poison, and the Trial That Ushered in the Twentieth Century
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 194
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 178
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Story4 out of 5 stars 176
The wayward son of a revered Civil War general, Roland Molineux enjoyed good looks, status, and fortune - hardly the qualities of a prime suspect in a series of shocking, merciless cyanide killings. Molineux's subsequent indictment for murder led to two explosive trials and a sex-infused scandal that shocked the nation. Bringing to life Manhattan's Gilded Age, Schechter captures all the colors of the tumultuous legal proceedings.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Book Without an Accompanying Wiki Page Is Always A Treat
- By Carolina on 02-27-17
By: Harold Schechter
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Jack the Ripper and the Case for Scotland Yard's Prime Suspect
- By: Robert House, Roy Hazelwood - foreword
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 160
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 144
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Story4 out of 5 stars 145
Dozens of theories have attempted to resolve the mystery of the identity of Jack the Ripper, the world's most famous serial killer. Ripperologist Robert House contends that we may have known the answer all along. The head of Scotland Yard's Criminal Investigation Department at the time of the murders thought Aaron Kozminski was guilty, but he lacked the legal proof to convict him. By exploring Kozminski's life, Robert House here builds a strong circumstantial case against him.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A restrained and humane account
- By Tad Davis on 01-08-13
By: Robert House, and others
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A Cold-Blooded Business
- Adultery, Murder, and a Killer's Path from the Bible Belt to the Boardroom
- By: Marek Fuchs
- Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 369
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 335
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Story4 out of 5 stars 329
In 1959, Olathe, Kansas was made famous by the murder of the Clutter family and Truman Capote's ground-breaking book on the crime, In Cold Blood. But fewer know that Olathe achieved notoriety again in 1982, when a member of Olathe's growing Evangelical Christian population, a gentle man named David Harmon, was bludgeoned to death while sleeping - the force of the blows crushing his face beyond recognition.
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5 out of 5 stars
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GOOD TRUE CRIME STORY
- By The Louligan on 08-17-14
By: Marek Fuchs
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The Sewing Girl's Tale
- A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America
- By: John Wood Sweet
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 135
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 108
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 107
On a moonless night in the summer of 1793 a crime was committed in the back room of a New York brothel—the kind of crime that even victims usually kept secret. Instead, seventeen-year-old seamstress Lanah Sawyer did what virtually no one in US history had done before: she charged a gentleman with rape. Her accusation sparked a raw courtroom drama and a relentless struggle for vindication that threatened both Lanah’s and her assailant’s lives.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great for history buffs!
- By LibertyHillbilly on 02-09-23
By: John Wood Sweet
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The Poison Patriarch
- How the Betrayals of Joseph P. Kennedy Caused the Assassination of JFK
- By: Mark Shaw
- Narrated by: Pat Kiernan
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 305
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 272
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Story4 out of 5 stars 270
Focusing for the first time on why attorney general Robert F. Kennedy wasn’t killed in 1963 instead of on why President John F. Kennedy was, Mark Shaw offers a stunning and provocative assassination theory that leads directly to the family patriarch, Joseph P. Kennedy. Mining fresh information and more than 40 new interviews, Shaw weaves a spellbinding narrative involving Mafia don Carlos Marcello; Jack Ruby (Lee Harvey Oswald’s killer); Ruby’s attorney, Melvin Belli; and, ultimately, the Kennedy brothers and their father.
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1 out of 5 stars
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He should stick to writing briefs
- By Karenanne Brown on 03-28-18
By: Mark Shaw
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The Complete Jack the Ripper
- By: Donald Rumbelow
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 14 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 136
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 116
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Story4 out of 5 stars 115
Laying out all the evidence in the most comprehensive summary ever written about the Ripper, this book, by a London police officer and crime authority, has subjected every theory - including those that have emerged in recent years-to the same deep scrutiny. The author also examines the mythology surrounding the case and provides some fascinating insights into the portrayal of the Ripper on stage and screen and on the printed page. More seriously, he also examines the horrifying parallel crimes of the Düsseldorf Ripper and the Yorkshire Ripper.
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3 out of 5 stars
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catch the facts if you can
- By Alexandra on 11-17-19
By: Donald Rumbelow