The Routledge Handbook of Jack the Ripper Studies is now available for pre-order on Kindle. This is a high-quality multi-disciplinary work on the Whitechapel murders of 1888, comprising eight themes and forty chapters by experts in their fields.

I contributed Chapter 13, Copycat and Legacy Killings. Abstract below.

This chapter will look at various other instances of homicide in the post-1888 period where the crimes of Jack the Ripper have been seemingly emulated in some way. Consideration will be given to victimology, to methodology and to motive in these episodes, in order to gauge whether the Whitechapel Murders really did influence subsequent acts of fatal violence. In addition, the chapter will determine the extent to which certain murderous episodes in the more modern era were deliberately manipulated by external agencies, such as the press media, to be reminiscent of the crimes of Jack the Ripper and will analyse and explore the reasons for this.

The book is released on 17 December.