History at its saddest

The Five:
The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
by Hallie Rubenhold

Here's the problem--how do you take five stories, each ending on the evening before the gruesome climax, and still make them suspenseful?

Danged if I know--but somehow she did it. This is the life story of the five canonical victims of Jack the Ripper before they met their end. She looked at the facts as a modern-day historian does, and related them so we could reach our own opinions as to the lifestyle and moral compass of the victims. Four of the five had histories that could be traced back through parents, upbringing, marriage and adulthood.

It would have been interesting if she'd submitted the research to a modern day psychological profiler to see what he'd make of the killer's selection of victims. Four of the five were in their forties or fifties; all were habitual drunkards; four (I think) had multiple children that they'd lost to disease or left behind for various reasons. I wouldn't make too much of the drunkenness--that seems to be normal for the era. But it may have made them easy victims.

As much as this book is great history writing, it has to make you sad. One thing you must agree on--even if their lives hadn't ended abruptly and sensationally, they would have simply ended with nothing to show for, nothing to remember.