Jack the Ripper: The Hand of a Woman

The Jack the Ripper murders of 1888 continue to exert a macabre hold on our imagination. Among the first serial murders, their brutality and bizarreness, and the seeming impossibility of detection have a terrible fascination. What kind of person could have performed such horrific deeds, and could have overstepped the boundary of what marks humankind? How could they not have been caught by the unprecedented police effort? The murders were reported on around the world and the murderer was the firs