Jack the Ripper: End of a Legend
Calum Reuben Knight
Athena Press, 2005
Softcover. 316pp
ISBN: 1844014843
Casebook Review: 
A strange book which straddles the line between fact and fiction. As fiction, it actually succeeds and is quite readable. But as non-fiction - it is, after all, marketed as "True Crime" - it ranks as one of the most implausible Ripper theories ever to hit the market. Through a series of improbably arcane and convoluted anagrams, Knight purports to show that "Jack the Ripper" was actually three people - George Hutchinson, Joseph Barnett, and Mary Jane Kelly. Knight trots out marriage entries and census records to support his argument, but none of them are convincing.
If this book had been written and marketed as fiction, it would have garnered a much better recommendation. Knight has an excellent command of language and his writing style is both readable and evocative. But as non-fiction, the book falls flat. Not recommended.
