The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold. No Advance Reader Copy included. No affiliate links used. You can read my full disclosure policy here.
How much do we really know about the women who were murdered by Jack the Ripper? For many of us, we know that they were sex workers, but not much else about their lives is mentioned in the true crime coverage of Jack the Ripper. The Five by Hallie Rubenhold sets out to rectify this by telling the stories of Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly with compassion and nuance.
Rubenhold dismantles the narrative that Jack the Ripper targeted sex workers who clearly deserved it. The truth is, most of these women were not sex workers and, unlike most Ripper coverage, Rubenhold makes clear that where women are sex workers, that does not mean they deserve to be murdered. No one deserves that.
I've been thinking a lot about how we consume true crime content and The Five deals with an aspect that I continue to struggle with; when we focus on the killer, what are we not learning about the victim(s)? I mentioned in my newsletter last year that reading I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara and The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir by Alexandria Marzano-Lesvenich in quick succession left me questioning whether our consumption of true crime as entertainment can ever be ethical.
I still don’t have the answer, but The Five is another piece of the complicated puzzle and it is a must read for true crime fans.
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold is published by Doubleday, an imprint of Penguin Random House, and is available in hardback, paperback, audiobook and ebook format.
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