I wrote this review a few years ago when this book was still published, and after having giggled over it with my mother last weekend, I thought I'd post it here again...
‘Jack’ is one of the great mysteries of crime. Ever since his career came to an abrupt end in November 1888 people have attempted to put a name to the infamous Ripper. Many have devoted time to writing and proposing their theories on the case and the suspects have become something of celebrities from the outlandish Royal conspiracy revolving around William Gull to the simplistic believers in no. 1 suspect M. J. Druitt, commonly referred to by the Ripper world as the “Druittists”. One thing for certain: William Bury will not be garnishing enough support to start the "Buryists" any time soon. While he is a reasonable suspect (albeit nothing to get excited about) this book is one of the most intolerable I have ever come across in the Ripper World.
JACK THE RIPPER UNMAKED is a typical example of Ripperology gone wrong. In an attempt to appear more scientific psychological terms are thrown at you left, right and centre in the first chapter. Therefore you are advised to read up on your criminal psychology before venturing into this book as you will find yourself bombarded with crime information completely unrelated to ‘Jack’. For the sake of your sanity here is what the author does: he uses the ‘Top-down’ approach to crime investigation to draw (very poor) assumptions about Bury’s link to the crime. He quotes several 20th century examples of crime in order to back his argument that ‘Jack’ was in fact ‘Billy’. This fell flat as I can quote several studies that show ‘Top-down' is not always a reliable form of deducing a criminal, and if this book can be scrutinised with A-level Psychology, I hate to think what real Criminologists would make of it!
While respect should be given to the time and research put into this book (four years) by William Beadle, it becomes clear quickly that all he did after four years was write a very muddled book. He has the nerve to consistently state that Bury (Not Jack or ‘The Ripper’) murdered the main five victims as well as other (deservingly) less probable Ripper victims and expects us to agree with him from the off. It is closely followed by the author's assumption that the ‘tragic’ Bury killed the prostitutes because their names were the same as his mother and sister.
Yes, because of their names.
It is all tied together with a repetitively anal and an unfounded psychoanalysis of Bury that would make Sigmund Freud blush. The author even attempts to tie Bury into the Ripper Letters (Including those that are obviously forgeries) and continues to do so despite the fact that a handwriting expert he himself asked said Bury’s writing did not match those of the letters! You get the feeling that the author distorts the facts slightly to better to his version of events. Whether this was his intention or not, who knows?
Throughout the book you are overrun with irrelevant 20th century cases that have no real parallel to the Ripper and frequent statements that ‘Bury did this...’ and ‘Bury did that...’ that by the time the important bit comes together, you no longer know what is fact and what is guesswork. Furthermore when you take time to analyse the sources used by Mr Beadle to ‘clarify’ the more convincing points he makes, you discover they from are rags such THE WEEKLY NEWS, written nearly forty years after the murder of Mary Kelly.
A majority of the ‘terrible childhood' he describes on the blurb is made up and based on unfounded assumption on his part about Bury’s early mental state. He frequently contradicts himself and glosses over any evidence contradicting him rather than produce a reasonable argument to it. To say that the book was disappointing is an understatement. It should not be tossed anyway lightly but thrown with tremendous force.
It frequently happens that when someone becomes in depth with the Ripper case, they latch on to a suspect and fight tooth and claw for them. In extreme cases, as fellow followers will agree, (Need I remind us all of Patricia Cornwall's JACK THE RIPPER: CASE CLOSED?) the writer becomes so obsessed with their idea that they start talking about their suspect as if he truly was the Ripper. This book is an example of that. He waits until the very last chapter to make his point by which time you are completely lost in a sea of head-spinning statements, most of which are speculation wrongly presented as fact. He lost me in first chapter and in the case of my mother who also read the book, the first paragraph.
The most important fact that ties Bury to the Ripper killings is that he murdered his wife in a slightly similar way to the earlier Ripper killings. It would seem more logical to start with that key point but no, Beadle insists on taking us on a fantasy background he had made up for William Beadle and delusional journey of circumstantial evidence before he even details the murder of Ellen, and even that misleading.
All things considered the book falls as flat as most Ripper books that have ‘UNMASKED’ in the title. The Ripper is certainly not ‘unmasked’ when he's armed with no more evidence than a half-decent suspect and over-the-top assumptions about Bury’s state of mind. The conclusions drawn certainly do not set the world alight nor do all of them make sense. Whether Bury manages to crawl into Donald Rumbelow's THE COMPLETE JACK THE RIPPER if he comes to revise it again in five years or so, who knows? But he'll have no trouble picking holes in the case if he does.
For a more comprehensive and readable book about William Bury I highly recommend Euan Macpherson’s THE TRIAL OF JACK THE RIPPER: THE CASE OF WILLIAM BURY. Macpherson manages to present Bury’s case in a much more organised (and honest) manner than Beadle does although I personally remain unconvinced by either.
My final message is to the author: I recommend that you find a good editor because the book is also not only confusing but riddled with several grammar mistakes. One or two can be forgiven but in the end my mother (who is a teacher) went through with a pencil, marking the mistakes. Overall it has all the sophistication of a first year A-level student's induction essay - and it's certainly not an A-grade.
‘Jack’ is one of the great mysteries of crime. Ever since his career came to an abrupt end in November 1888 people have attempted to put a name to the infamous Ripper. Many have devoted time to writing and proposing their theories on the case and the suspects have become something of celebrities from the outlandish Royal conspiracy revolving around William Gull to the simplistic believers in no. 1 suspect M. J. Druitt, commonly referred to by the Ripper world as the “Druittists”. One thing for certain: William Bury will not be garnishing enough support to start the "Buryists" any time soon. While he is a reasonable suspect (albeit nothing to get excited about) this book is one of the most intolerable I have ever come across in the Ripper World.
JACK THE RIPPER UNMAKED is a typical example of Ripperology gone wrong. In an attempt to appear more scientific psychological terms are thrown at you left, right and centre in the first chapter. Therefore you are advised to read up on your criminal psychology before venturing into this book as you will find yourself bombarded with crime information completely unrelated to ‘Jack’. For the sake of your sanity here is what the author does: he uses the ‘Top-down’ approach to crime investigation to draw (very poor) assumptions about Bury’s link to the crime. He quotes several 20th century examples of crime in order to back his argument that ‘Jack’ was in fact ‘Billy’. This fell flat as I can quote several studies that show ‘Top-down' is not always a reliable form of deducing a criminal, and if this book can be scrutinised with A-level Psychology, I hate to think what real Criminologists would make of it!
While respect should be given to the time and research put into this book (four years) by William Beadle, it becomes clear quickly that all he did after four years was write a very muddled book. He has the nerve to consistently state that Bury (Not Jack or ‘The Ripper’) murdered the main five victims as well as other (deservingly) less probable Ripper victims and expects us to agree with him from the off. It is closely followed by the author's assumption that the ‘tragic’ Bury killed the prostitutes because their names were the same as his mother and sister.
Yes, because of their names.
It is all tied together with a repetitively anal and an unfounded psychoanalysis of Bury that would make Sigmund Freud blush. The author even attempts to tie Bury into the Ripper Letters (Including those that are obviously forgeries) and continues to do so despite the fact that a handwriting expert he himself asked said Bury’s writing did not match those of the letters! You get the feeling that the author distorts the facts slightly to better to his version of events. Whether this was his intention or not, who knows?
Throughout the book you are overrun with irrelevant 20th century cases that have no real parallel to the Ripper and frequent statements that ‘Bury did this...’ and ‘Bury did that...’ that by the time the important bit comes together, you no longer know what is fact and what is guesswork. Furthermore when you take time to analyse the sources used by Mr Beadle to ‘clarify’ the more convincing points he makes, you discover they from are rags such THE WEEKLY NEWS, written nearly forty years after the murder of Mary Kelly.
A majority of the ‘terrible childhood' he describes on the blurb is made up and based on unfounded assumption on his part about Bury’s early mental state. He frequently contradicts himself and glosses over any evidence contradicting him rather than produce a reasonable argument to it. To say that the book was disappointing is an understatement. It should not be tossed anyway lightly but thrown with tremendous force.
It frequently happens that when someone becomes in depth with the Ripper case, they latch on to a suspect and fight tooth and claw for them. In extreme cases, as fellow followers will agree, (Need I remind us all of Patricia Cornwall's JACK THE RIPPER: CASE CLOSED?) the writer becomes so obsessed with their idea that they start talking about their suspect as if he truly was the Ripper. This book is an example of that. He waits until the very last chapter to make his point by which time you are completely lost in a sea of head-spinning statements, most of which are speculation wrongly presented as fact. He lost me in first chapter and in the case of my mother who also read the book, the first paragraph.
The most important fact that ties Bury to the Ripper killings is that he murdered his wife in a slightly similar way to the earlier Ripper killings. It would seem more logical to start with that key point but no, Beadle insists on taking us on a fantasy background he had made up for William Beadle and delusional journey of circumstantial evidence before he even details the murder of Ellen, and even that misleading.
All things considered the book falls as flat as most Ripper books that have ‘UNMASKED’ in the title. The Ripper is certainly not ‘unmasked’ when he's armed with no more evidence than a half-decent suspect and over-the-top assumptions about Bury’s state of mind. The conclusions drawn certainly do not set the world alight nor do all of them make sense. Whether Bury manages to crawl into Donald Rumbelow's THE COMPLETE JACK THE RIPPER if he comes to revise it again in five years or so, who knows? But he'll have no trouble picking holes in the case if he does.
For a more comprehensive and readable book about William Bury I highly recommend Euan Macpherson’s THE TRIAL OF JACK THE RIPPER: THE CASE OF WILLIAM BURY. Macpherson manages to present Bury’s case in a much more organised (and honest) manner than Beadle does although I personally remain unconvinced by either.
My final message is to the author: I recommend that you find a good editor because the book is also not only confusing but riddled with several grammar mistakes. One or two can be forgiven but in the end my mother (who is a teacher) went through with a pencil, marking the mistakes. Overall it has all the sophistication of a first year A-level student's induction essay - and it's certainly not an A-grade.
