Ebook399 pages6 hours
People of Abandoned Character: A dark and addictive historical mystery about Jack the Ripper and his wife
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
About this ebook
What if you thought your husband was Jack the Ripper?
London, 1888. Susannah rushes into marriage to a young and wealthy surgeon. After a passionate honeymoon, she returns home with her new husband wrapped around her little finger. But then everything changes. His behaviour becomes increasingly volatile and violent. He stays out all night, returning home bloodied and full of secrets.
Lonely and frustrated, Susannah starts following the gruesome reports of a spate of murders in Whitechapel. But as the killings continue, her mind takes her down the darkest path imaginable. Every time he stays out late, another victim is found dead. Is it coincidence? Or is her husband the man the papers call Jack the Ripper?
Reviews for People of Abandoned Character:
'A mistreated wife suspects her husband might be the Whitechapel killer... Compelling' Sunday Times
'An astonishing book' M.W. Craven
'A gripping and original take on the world's most notorious serial killer. A perfectly thrilling read for those long winter nights' Adam Hamdy
'This impressive debut builds up pace, pathos and intrigue superbly, with plenty of twists and turns' Woman's Weekly
London, 1888. Susannah rushes into marriage to a young and wealthy surgeon. After a passionate honeymoon, she returns home with her new husband wrapped around her little finger. But then everything changes. His behaviour becomes increasingly volatile and violent. He stays out all night, returning home bloodied and full of secrets.
Lonely and frustrated, Susannah starts following the gruesome reports of a spate of murders in Whitechapel. But as the killings continue, her mind takes her down the darkest path imaginable. Every time he stays out late, another victim is found dead. Is it coincidence? Or is her husband the man the papers call Jack the Ripper?
Reviews for People of Abandoned Character:
'A mistreated wife suspects her husband might be the Whitechapel killer... Compelling' Sunday Times
'An astonishing book' M.W. Craven
'A gripping and original take on the world's most notorious serial killer. A perfectly thrilling read for those long winter nights' Adam Hamdy
'This impressive debut builds up pace, pathos and intrigue superbly, with plenty of twists and turns' Woman's Weekly
Author
Clare Whitfield
Clare Whitfield was born in 1978 in Morden (at the bottom of the Northern line) in Greater London. After university she worked at a publishing company before going on to hold various positions in buying and marketing. She now lives in Hampshire with her family. Her debut novel, People of Abandoned Character, won the Goldsboro Glass Bell Award and is also published by Head of Zeus.
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Reviews for People of Abandoned Character
Rating: 3.842105189473684 out of 5 stars
4/5
19 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5WOW. Just wow. After ploughing through a slew of three star books, a random recommendation on Instagram completely captivated my imagination! Clare Whitfield's Victorian gothic mystery, based on the murders of Jack the Ripper and with shades of classic 'sensation novels' like The Woman in White, is the story of Susannah Chapman, a nurse who marries a wealthy doctor to escape the poverty and drudgery she was born to. Dr Thomas Lancaster is handsome and charming, and Susannah can't understand why he is interested in her, a plain, thirty year old spinster with a shameful background, but agrees to marry him anyway. When the confidence and authority of her husband's upper middle class position turns to vicious cruelty and abuse soon after she moves in to his Chelsea house, with his Danvers-esque housekeeper Mrs WIggs, Susannah fears that she has escaped the frying pan by jumping into the fire - but what is the dark secret Thomas is keeping from his new wife?The premise of the story is that Susannah believes that Thomas is Jack the Ripper, committing the horrific murders of 'women of abandoned character' in Whitechapel, where Susannah herself was born, but I actually found Susannah's own situation, and that of all Victorian women, to be far more disturbing. She marries Thomas out of vanity and ambition, but when she realises that he is not who she thought he was, she is trapped - her husband 'owns' her, legally and financially, and nobody would take her word over his if she spoke out, which she does try. There is also the very Victorian suggestion that Susannah is merely being 'hysterical' and imagining everything that happens to her at home - is she an unreliable narrator after all? The author had me doubting Susannah and her laudanum-fuelled 'hallucinations' at one point, skilfully unravelling the 'truth' about the characters at a constantly tense pace.Despite not fully being able to trust Susannah, I did sympathise with her and wanted her triumph over her slimy husband and his haughty housekeeper. And despite the historical setting of the story, she is a very resourceful woman. Whereas the revelations about Thomas and Mrs Wiggs didn't surprise me, I was shocked by a secret from Susannah's past - but by that point, I was strangely willing to accept that Thomas wasn't the only one with two sides to his character!I just can't recommend this book enough - the pages will fly, and there is also a lot of interesting historical fact about the women murdered by Jack the Ripper, brought to life far more vividly in this fictional account than Hallie Rubenhold managed in The Five. The memory of the Ripper's last victim, Mary Jane Kelly, is perhaps betrayed for dramatic effect, but I think she met a far worse fate in real life.
Book preview
People of Abandoned Character - Clare Whitfield
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