A Study in Red: The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper [Paperback]

CK2S Kwips and Kritiques
Book Review

Story Summary Robert Cavendish is bereft with grief at his father's recent passing. He was also surprised to learn his father bequeathed Robert a mysterious journal to be read after his death. Read by him and him alone. As he reads the journal, he comes to realize that he holds in his hands the actual rantings and admissions of Jack the Ripper! But that, as they say, is only the beginning. From those pages Robert discovers the answer to old mysteries and atrocities, answers that lead him down a path of horror and insanity. What affect can the secret ravings of a murderer such as Jack the Ripper have on a person? And what connection did Robert's father have to this secret journal?

Your Opinion
I was immediately struck by the enormous amount of research that went into A Study in Red (The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper). It brought 18th century London to life, making the story almost palpable. For over a hundred years, the mystery of Jack the Ripper has been investigated, written about, and discussed, but never like this. I could feel the cobblestones under my feet, hear the horses and carriages and smell the foul air of the London back alleyways.

The journal was an interesting tool, bringing the reader directly into Jack's world and the insanity inflicting him. Experiencing the journal with Robert was intense as the mysteries unfold page by page. The suspense kept me engrossed well into the late evening hours, just as Robert had... I can feel the goose bumps now.

The identity of Jack the Ripper has been explored, but never in such a deliciously nail biting manner. Although fiction, the possibilities of who Jack really was and where he came from as well as his unfortunate victims felt all too real thanks to the obvious hard work of the author to create this sensational tale.

Reviewed By: Terri

A Study in Red - The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper by Brian L Porter tells the story of Robert Cavendish, a modern day psychiatrist who is bequeathed a strange set of papers which purport to be the journal of the long-dead infamous Whitechapel Murderer whose crimes gripped the hearts and minds and instilled terror on the streets of Victorian London. As he begins to read the journal, Robert becomes convinced of it's authenticity and finds that the words of the Ripper have a strange and compelling effect on him. Unable to cast the pages aside he finds himself being drawn into the dark and sinister world of the killer until he is unable to distinguish what is fact and what is fantasy. In short, Robert Cavendish begins to feel as though he is being taken over in some way by the soul of the long-dead Ripper. What happens as he progresses through the journal will disturb and shock the reader as the close dividing line between sanity and madness is explored to the full.

A Study in Red - The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper by Brian L Porter tells the story of Robert Cavendish, a modern day psychiatrist who is bequeathed a strange set of papers which purport to be the journal of the long-dead infamous Whitechapel Murderer whose crimes gripped the hearts and minds and instilled terror on the streets of Victorian London. As he begins to read the journal, Robert becomes convinced of it's authenticity and finds that the words of the Ripper have a strange and compelling effect on him. Unable to cast the pages aside he finds himself being drawn into the dark and sinister world of the killer until he is unable to distinguish what is fact and what is fantasy. In short, Robert Cavendish begins to feel as though he is being taken over in some way by the soul of the long-dead Ripper. What happens as he progresses through the journal will disturb and shock the reader as the close dividing line between sanity and madness is explored to the f!
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INTRODUCTION

The London of the 1880s differed greatly from the city of today. Poverty and wealth existed side by side, the defining line between the two often marked only by the turning of a corner, from the well-lit suburban streets of the middle-classes and the wealthy, to the seedy, crime and rat infested slums, where poverty, homelessness, desperation and deprivation walked hand in hand with drunkenness, immorality, and crime most foul. In the teeming slums of the city by night the most commonly heard cry in the darkness was thought to be that of 'Murder!' So inured were the people who lived amongst such squalor and amidst the fever of criminal intimidation that it is said, in time, no-one took any notice of such cries.

It was into this swirling maelstrom of vice and human degradation, London's East End, that there appeared a malevolent force, a merciless killer who stalked the mean streets by night in search of his prey and gave the great metropolis that was London its first taste of the now increasingly common phenomenon, the serial killer! The streets of Whitechapel were to become the stalking ground of that mysterious and as yet still unidentified slayer known to history as 'Jack the Ripper!'

AN EXTRACT FROM THE JOURNAL

Blood, beautiful, thick, rich, red, venous blood.

Its' colour fills my eyes, its' scent assaults my nostrils,

Its' taste hangs sweetly on my lips.

Last night once more the voices called to me,

And I did venture forth, their bidding, their unholy quest to undertake.

Through mean, gas lit, fog shrouded streets, I wandered in the night, selected, struck, with flashing blade,

And oh, how the blood did run, pouring out upon the street, soaking through the cobbled cracks, spurting, like a fountain of pure red.

Viscera leaking from ripped red gut, my clothes assumed the smell of freshly butchered meat. The squalid, dark, street shadows beckoned, and under leaning darkened eaves, like a wraith I disappeared once more into the cheerless night,

The bloodlust of the voices again fulfilled, for a while...

They will call again, and I once more will prowl the streets upon the night,

The blood will flow like a river once again.

Beware all those who would stand against the call,

I shall not be stopped or taken, no, not I.

Sleep fair city, while you can, while the voices within are still,

I am resting, but my time shall come again. I shall rise in a glorious bloodfest,

I shall taste again the fear as the blade slices sharply through yielding flesh,

when the voices raise the clarion call, and my time shall come again.

So I say again, good citizens, sleep, for there will be a next time...

~

To my dearest nephew, Jack,

This testament, the journal, and all the papers that accompany it are yours upon my death, as they became mine upon my father's death. Aunt Sarah, and I were never fortunate enough to have children of our own, so it is with a heavy heart that I write this note to accompany these pages. Had I any alternative, I would spare you the curse of our family's deepest secret, or perhaps I should say, secrets! Having read what you are about to read, I had neither the courage to destroy it, nor to reveal the secrets contained within these pages. I beg you, as my father begged me, to read the journal and the notes that go with it, and be guided by your conscience and your intelligence in deciding what course of action to take when you have done so. Whatever you decide to do, dear nephew, I beg you, do not judge those who have gone before you too harshly, for the curse of the journal you are about to read is as real as these words I now write to you.

Be safe, Jack, but be warned.

Your loving uncle,

Robert