Crime Author Announces She's Sooo Over Jack The Ripper But We're Not

Jack the Ripper's romantic legacy attracts all manner of 'holistic' sleuth and special investigator, including swashbookler whose own vigorously researched compendium is at present unwritten. Well-known mystery author Patricia Cornwall has indicated previously that the Ripper's real identity was that of Mr. Popular (at the time - Certainly not nowadays as you have to have a serious motherfuckin' 'Arts' education to be into this guy) impressionist painter Walter Sickert.

Desperately Seeking Walt, as he was known by admirers and close adjuncts, had, according to Corny Pat, a fistula* that required painful operations when he was a small boy just entering into the 'I can Masturbate Thick Gobs Of Paralyzing Goop' phase, enjoyed running around in disguises, and could easily falsify his handwriting for the Ripper letters, which were numerous during the killings. To be fair, a DNA test was done on a pair of the artist's overalls and samples of glue on letters written to the police by the Ripper - and however favorable, these remain inconclusive.

But now: Corny Pat has paid for full page advertisements in the newspapers saying that she's not Obsessed with Jack.

Why this matters to the 'Blottered Beat'? Well, it doesn't, but Jack the Ripper does. He's the key figure in the evolution of the modern serial killer. His gruesome skullduggery was done at the conjunction of the old world meeting the new. The very first celebrity killer (if you don't count David killing poor old Goliath), Jack is a crucial foundation stone in the history of crime. Perfect for a Saturday night's read, as city sounds and the sounds of migrating life take place outside of Saturday's dark windows.

1888 Victorian London. For three months a shadowy killer stalks the unspeakably ugly (or cruel beauty) of the slummy bivouac-like East End.

Following now established location-specific-behavior schema patterns of serial murderers, The Ripper, AKA "Leather Apron" sticks to a mile area, criss-crossing the districts of Whitechapel, the charmingly named Spitalfields, and Aldgate.

The Whitechapel Murderer preys on drunken prostitutes, the number of his or her victim's either as few as four, or as many as eight. Victims are strangled, their throats sliced, a piece of viscera taken. Jack is believed to have some kind of medical knowledge, on one occasion taking a kidney from the front of a body instead of the side, without damaging other organs. On another occasion Jack removes a victim's sexual organs with one cut, presumably in the total darkness of a foggy London alley.

Jack the Ripper is an enduring mystery. The wide variety of suspects over the past century include but are not limited to:

Prince Albert Victor, who was born slightly retarded, had an elongated torso his father King Edward VII and mother Alexandra of Denmark covered with foppish high collars and sleeves: Known to his family simply as Eddy.

The royal family's Doctor at Large: William Gull. Alan Moore readers know Gull as the Masonic culprit From Hell who says things like, "It is beginning...only just beginning. for better or worse, the twentieth century. I have delivered it."

PS

Drunken conversation during dark drive in country last night. Farms pass like women's belts, thinning, and then suddenly a red barn rises in the distance exactly like a feminine belt buckle with little swans and bleating doves. Fog twirls like curly hair. Dark roads, darker subject.

Me: "Have you read From Hell? About Jack the Ripper. It's 500 plus pages, exhaustively researched."
Other: "I have the DVD."
Me. "The one with Johnny Depp chasing the dragon?"
Other: "That's the one."
Me: "The fucking Hughes bros."
Other: "I heard that Jack might not have been in the medical profession. That the police might have exaggerated that aspect."
Me, looking out into the dark, dreamy darkness: "Really?"

* A fistula is some sort of abnormal connection. Not unlike the popular cheerleader befriending a young coke-bottle lens adorned Outsider, as seen in many feature films - except this abnormal connection is between an organ, a vessel, or intestine and another structure. That doesn't mean you can't say, "That's a fucking fistula", next time you happen to catch a rerun of one of these films.

Cornwell denies 'Ripper' obsession Scotsman