Whitechapel 1888; a killer is on the loose and the newspapers are ensuring the nation knows all about not just the crimes but the terrible living conditions in which they are being perpetrated.

Nashey, a tough, scary yet charismatic man of the night, whose mother had to prostitute herself when he was a boy, knows the identity of the killer but keeps it a secret. He believes the publicity generated by the murders is forcing the authorities to address the poverty and degradation in the area. He allows the killer to remain free (whilst ensuring no more women are attacked) so the unsolved murders continue to dominate the headlines.

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He meets Sookey, an eccentric middle-class slummer and civilising influence. The two of them share a mutual friend, Mary Kelly, a fiery young prostitute whose back-story tells of how she was reduced to such a life.

To fund his surveillance of the killer, Nashey agrees, against his better judgement, to assist an old adversary to commit a daring night robbery under the noses of the huge police presence in the area.

Is it too late for Nashey and Mary to correct their mistakes?

My Review

A somewhat different approach to the usual Jack The Ripper stories – Whitechapel doesn’t centre on the killer himself or the police who are tracking him down. His identity here is almost irrelevant. Out main protagonists are Alexander ‘Nashey’ Nash, who lives in Whitechapel, his friend and prostitute Mary Kelly, who has come to London following a sad start in life, and the eccentric, middle class Sookey, who struggles to be accepted as a ‘slummer’.

Now as I know the story pretty well, there were no surprises about certain outcomes. Some characters are real like Mary Kelly, Lloyd-George and George Lusk, while others are totally fictitious. There were times when the story read like non-fiction, giving us an insight into life in a slum in the late 1900s, while at others, it was a novel like any other.

The relationships between Nash, Mary and Sookey were well handled, but there is nothing romantic or soppy. Life was hard and people had to do what they did in order to survive. Prostitution for many women (and no doubt boys and young men) was better than the workhouse, though I can’t imagine anything worse. The danger and the degradation led many to spend a large part of their earnings on gin to overcome the disgust.

Nash is a big, scary, hard man. He’s actually intelligent and self-educated like Mary. He often wears a Peaky Blinders cap when he goes out, and uses it, but only in defence of others. Sookey had a privileged background, but admits she is not very clever or knowledgeable. Nash believes that leaving the killer on the streets will finally bring the terrible squalor and poverty to the attention of the politicians, a plan which ultimately works, but with horrendous consequences. Can the end ever justify the means? Easy for us to say never (personally I believe it never can), but life was very different then.

The book is written in what is often an unemotional and non-judgemental way (also making it seem like non-fiction at times), but I think that’s the intention. We are observers – it’s not for us to judge the behaviour of these people – we can’t possibly understand their plight. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours

As a PS I love rhyming slang so the inclusion of a few examples really made my day. Even though I’m nowhere near London, I often ask someone if they are a bit ‘mutton’ or whether their whatever has been ‘half-hinched’. A friend of my son’s from Birmingham just looked at me like I’d gone nuts.

About the Author

Ian Porter is a historian, lecturer, public speaker and walks guide. He has a particular interest in women’s history and social history. His novels are renowned for being extremely well researched and historically accurate. Whitechapel Autumn of Error is a typically feminist, social history novel that brings the dark streets of the East End 1888 to life. He has written several other novels including the highly acclaimed Suffragette Autumn Women’s Spring, set during the fight for the vote for women, and A Plague On Both Your Houses, set in both London & Berlin in 1918/19 during the final months of The Great War and the Spanish Flu. Ian is getting on a bit (well, aged 69). His grandparents were young adults living in East London at the time of the Whitechapel Murders.