This is rare-perhaps even unique-among novels of Jack the Ripper in being about his victims as distinct from the killer;true his identity is revealed towards the end of the novel but this is not the main concern of the book or the author.It is ,rather,an examination of the social conditions in the London of the 1880's as seen through the eyes of "Mary Kelly"who has returned to the city having done well for herself in Canada as first a whore and then a "Madam"She is posing as a well to do widow come to visit relatives,but her real purpose is to try to locate her two sisters both also named "Mary Kelly"whom she had left behind when fleeing London a decade earlier to avoid the violent and unwanted attentions of her pimp,who is none other than the Ripper.

She is a modern woman-feisty and independent,well able to look after herself but clearly taken aback by the conditions in Whitechapel where 1 in 20 economically active women is a prostitute and squalor sits cheek by jowl with rank and privilege.
The book is the tale of her search for the sisters and how this brings her on a collision course with the Ripper

The portrait of London is vivid and detailed-with its poverty and tawdriness the obverse of Imperial bombast and grandeur.It is important to be reminded that perhaps the least important part of the whole sorry story is the identity of the killer and that the real story is of the victims both of the odious barbarian and of the society of the day with its despair,poverty and casual racism(especially Anti-semitism)These are not shirked in a gruelling and powerful piece of work with a heroine both memerable and likeable

Nopt for "Ripperologists" that peculiar breed but recommended if yo like novels of the past with roots in reality

Such an interesting premise ... what happened to Sally Bowles after the Cabaret?

What a disappointing execution of a potentially fascinating premise.

Sally's conversion to Communism is impossible to swallow. From 'divine decadence' to Marxism? It makes little sense given any of the myriad characterizations of Sally, and the author does not deign to give us any possible reason for her revolutionary change in outlook. Part of her charm has been in her blindness to the political climate that, unbeknownst to her, shapes and guides her. After the Cabaret, in ignoring that tradition, leaves the reader with the impression that the author wanted to write a story that had nothing to do with the Isherwood, or Broadway, or Film images of Sally. The whole project smacks of an attempt to cash in on the Sally Bowles name; this book has nothing to do with the Sally I know.

That combined with the boring, mudane, turgid, never-ending, meandering prose just killed this book for me. Don't waste your time.