The Five, by Hallie Rubenhold (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). The five London women murdered by Jack the Ripper, in 1888, were long assumed to be prostitutes. This history shows otherwise, presenting deeply researched portraits of the victims as they lived: they were all poor, some to the point of homelessness; they were all apparently killed while asleep; and, with one exception, they were known by family and acquaintances not to be prostitutes. Each had a distinct story that has never been fully or truthfully told. Why Victorians preferred to embrace the myth is one question that guides the book; why we continue to do so is another. “Our culture’s obsession with the mythology,” Rubenhold writes, “serves only to normalize its particular brand of misogyny.”
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