Book Rating: 2.25 stars
While the book was informative, it was heavily skewed in the "police only do good things" direction, and Scotland Yard is the superior police force tilt as well.

He didn't bother to mention the recent kidnapping and murder of a young woman by a police officer in London. Or I'm sure others that have occurred and got less press attention.

The author also credited Scotland Yard with introducing basically any forensic tool that hasn't been discredited, yet didn't bother to mention any that may have later been discovered to be disreputable.

While I was glad this book got into some cases from after the 1940s, it covered the same information as a lot of historical accounts of crime in London. It says infamous cases in the subtitles, but I'd like a book that covers some lesser-known cases. It's like the author just slightly reworded other books for everything before the 20th century.

Overall, a meh book. If you've read other historical true crime books about England or London, don't bother to read this book.

Book Rating: 2.0 stars
This book was very white and UK-centric, it didn't discuss ANY cases from other European countries or the United States, much less countries with people of color.
I think a better name for the book would have been something about the invention of true crime media. Obviously, murder existed WAY before the Victorian era, and in many other areas of the world. This book was more centered on the journalism around the crimes than on how the act of murder started.

However, even for a media-centric book it was, again, only centered on Victorian-era newspapers and other forms of media from the time, but left out all other countries besides the UK. Anyone who's read on the subject knows that US media was just as true crime obsessed as the UK's.

I did learn about a lot of crimes I was unaware of, however, the largest part of the book was centered on Jack the Ripper, anyone who's read any amount of true crime set in Victorian Era UK, has heard the story a million times, so I got yet another long-winded resuscitation of the facts, while also being told, well, of course, you've heard of this, etc.

Book Rating: 1.0 stars
This book at first blush seems well-researched, however, the author has an agenda. It also seems as if his primary source is the police and prosecution. He didn't bother to talk to any of the people tried for these crimes, their lawyers, or any actual experts.

I hate that he glorifies people who committed obvious misconduct, quite a few of whom were later fired for such if not prosecuted. Even in the afterward update the author refuses to budge on their guilt.

From what I can tell, they didn't bother to add anything after the late 1990s. Like how supposed "bite mark" evidence has been proven to be BS. It's about as reliable as thread comparison.

He can shout from the rooftops that he thinks the people tried and mostly convicted, one of whom was executed for the crimes, are guilty. However, you only have the word of jailhouse snitches, or those who "confessed" to the crimes to avoid the death penalty. The cop he lauds so highly has been proven to have fabricated evidence.

I'd like a new edition with these things noted in a second afterward.
I could have also gone without the blow-by-blow of how the crime supposedly occurred; it was gratuitous. With very little mention of how the victims must have suffered. It seemed as if the author was largely immune to any suffering but that of the families of the victims, even at the expense of the victims themselves!

Takeaway: DO NOT waste 15+ hours of your life on this book.

Narrator Rating: 3.0 stars
You can't polish a turd, but he didn't make it stink any worse.

Book Rating: 2.75 stars
Read this book if you're in the mood for something: dark, informative, reflective, & slow-paced

This book was quite interesting but was more of a history of tabloid "journalism" than about the murder case it purports to be about. Also, from everything I've read and listened to, America was hooked on true crime before this. There are multiple cases from the late 1800s that captured the nation's attention and had creepy people coming and stealing items from the crime scene, etc.

I wish there was a way to solve this case, but obviously, that's almost impossible at this point. Unless a descendent finds something in someone's papers that admits guilt and shares it with the police or public.

This book was a bit long for the topic and available information. I did learn about a case I'd never heard of before, as well as a little bit more information about the start of tabloids than I have from other books.

Narrator Rating: 2.5 stars
The narrator was nothing special, but also wasn't terrible.

Book Rating: 2.25 stars
I really would have liked more explanation as to how the authors came about a lot of their conclusions. The authors seemed to just say, well we say this is true, so it must be. This book really could have used some statistics, one of the authors is a statistician, so where are they?!

Also, it was hard to keep all the crimes straight as there were simply so many, and some he mentioned and then waited to go into detail later, but it was hard to remember, other than a chapter mention, what had been said earlier. Yet, at the same time, some things were repetitive.

I gave it 2.25 stars simply because it was fairly interesting, and a new to me case. I could have also gone without the overly detailed descriptions of women and stating if they were "beautiful" or not.

Book Rating: 1.75 stars
From the language you can tell the author is a boomer, he does call himself a boomer in the book and references his age quite a bit. I wish the editors had bothered to change a lot of the offensive terms like "junkie" and "prostitute". This book was originally published in 2020 so there's no excuse.

I wish the author hadn't spent almost equal amounts of time on the real crimes and the movies that were based on them for most of the cases. I also could have used it without all the physical descriptions, especially of women's bodies, under the guise of saying "Oh well this is what the press said." The author seemed to enjoy critiquing people, especially women's looks.

It was an informative book, however, if you read/listen to any amount of true crime you've probably heard of at least a third to half of these cases already. There were maybe two to three cases I hadn't heard of, most of these are highly publicized. I think this book is more for film buffs than true crime followers, as this didn't give an in-depth look into the cases.

Book Rating: 2.5 starsĚý
The books were okay, definitely outdated but that's to be expected since the first book was originally published in 2000. I liked the start of each chapter with the information about the topic, and some educational type material.

I wish they'd taken the time to edit out the duplicates. I ended up skipping half of one chapter in the second or third book because the stories were already told in a previous book. I also wish the stories had been a bit less repetitive at times, how many times do I have to hear about people getting out of the car at a safari park and it ending badly?

I agree with the author, that these should be consumed in smaller chunks as they get depressing and that was one mistake of mine when reading this. It started out being humorous, but because I read it so quickly it started to seem sad.