The Five

Reviews / Votes

FIVE STARS: At last, the Ripper's victims get a voice... An eloquent, stirring challenge to reject the prevailing Ripper myth. -- Gwen Smith * Mail on Sunday * How fitting that in the year when we celebrate the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage, dignity is finally returned to these unfortunate women. * Professor Dame Sue Black, author of ALL THAT REMAINS * A Ripper narrative that gives voice to the women he silenced; I've been waiting for this book for years. Beautifully written and with the grip of a thriller, it will open your eyes and break your heart. * Erin Kelly, author of HE SAID/SHE SAID * What a brilliant and necessary book * Jo Baker, author of LONGBOURN * Devastatingly good. The Five will leave you in tears of pity and of rage. * LUCY WORSLEY * Forests have been felled in the interests of unmasking the murderer, but until now no one has bothered to discover the identity of his victims. The Five is thus an angry and important work of historical detection, calling time on the misogyny that has fed the Ripper myth. . . This is a powerful and a shaming book, but most shameful of all is that it took 130 years to write. -- Frances Wilson * Guardian * By collating these five deeply affecting biographies ... Rubenhold has given these women the immortality that their murderer does not deserve. * Daily Mail * Stupendous. The sort of work that keeps history vital. * IMOGEN HERMES GOWAR, author of THE MERMAID AND MRS HANCOCK * Fascinating, compelling, moving, The Five makes a fierce, passionate argument about the ethics of how we engage with murder. A brilliant,properly thoughtful, responsible piece of political writing. * BRIDGET COLLINS, author of THE BINDING * 'Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly deserve to be thought of as more than eviscerated bodies on an East London street. This haunting book does something to redress that balance. * Sunday Times *