This was the first story I read and it set the bar for all the rest. BlackRonin - excellent story! Congratulations on your CAW win!

 

*Slaps BR on the back and offers him a rum and coke.*

Fantastic job.

 

Congratulations, this was definitely the best story, and any criticisms were mere nitpicks.

 

For the most part this was a fun story to work on. I first read about the Ripper in a book from my elementary school library about unsolved mysteries, and I was suitably fascinated by the Ripper chapter (not to mention educated about some of the more unseemly elements of poverty in 19th century London). A few years ago I unearthed a copy of that long out of print book for nostalgia and research purposes and when reviewing the Ripper chapter again it occurred to me it was the easiest possible formula for a story: violence, sex, and sex work, three things I like to write about anyway, here coupled with an always marketable name and theme.

I did a fair amount of research, but in the end the only thing I really relied on was Phil Sugden's "The Complete History of Jack the Ripper," a book that spends almost as much time debunking other Ripper books as writing about the crimes. I'm not educated enough in the subject to say whether Sugden is right in all his allegations, but I liked his no-nonsense approach. Much--I would even say most--of the material in this story is just yanked right out of historical record. The dialogue of the East Enders in the very first scene is lifted straight out of a contemporary newspaper story, for example. The lynch mob scene comes from an account of one of the arresting officers. The prankster with the knife, the crossdressing policemen, etc all apparently really happened. There are some anachronisms, of course, including a few Americanisms that slipped in and stuff like the completely gratuitous girl-on-girl scene (not that people didn't do that in those days, but this is clearly written in the style of a more modern encounter), which is admittedly just there for a cheap reader thrill.

There are other sources too: The scene with the moneylending ex is pretty clearly borrowed from "A Christmas Carol," and the final scare with the unseen man clearing his throat is stolen from a Bradbury story (but I won't say which one for fear of spoiling it). Rose is entirely a fabrication, although I did borrow her name from a real woman, Rose Mylett, who was murdered in the same neighborhood some time after the killings. As the title implies, I was less interested in writing about the crimes as about the neighborhood and the people who lived there. I don't pretend to really understand what poor and working people in that time and place were like, but I was fascinated by the mania the murders incited. We see a lot of people being cruel and stupid in this story, but Rose also meets people who show warmth and kindness at the least likely times. "Fun" fact: While this competition was happening, a murder victim was found in a poor neighborhood not far from where I live, chopped up and stuffed in a suitcase. They only just now identified the victim because apparently it's hard to ID a guy off of just a leg and a torso. If anyone asks, I have an alibi for that night...

I'm glad people liked the story, and I already know what we're all doing next. Cheers, and thanks for reading.

 

Superior stuff, Ronin. *samurai bow*