Mark Andrews - The Return of Jack the Ripper

[dem bones]

Mark Andrews - The Return of Jack the Ripper (Leisure, 1977)

Blurb:
THE BLADE
An English acting company opened a Broadway play based on the bloody Ripper murders of 1888. Just as the previews were beginning, a prostitute was found dead in an alley near the theater, disembowelled, her throat slashed. Other murders followed, each one more horrible than the last, and after every crime the killer wrote a mocking, boastful note and signed it “The Blade.” The city was gripped In terror. Had the most monstrous figure In the history of murder returned to kill again?

Author of slightly peculiar film-crew-in-peril novel, Satan's Manor returns with pacy stage play-sparks-Ripper-comeback melodrama.

"To the west of Whitechapel lay Spitalfields, and south of Spitalfields was Aldgate. But all three districts, jammed up next to each other in one crowded square mile north of the Thames, were so much alike that it was difficult to tell where one left off and another began. So most Londoners, even those unfortunate enough to live there, often lumped the whole wretched area together and called it Whitechapel - or, for more dramatic effect, simply the Square Mile of Evil, as though the place were too vile even to deserve a name."

Part One: Bucks Row

A confident opening chapter. Author identifies the original Ripper by name on very first page and proceeds to provide him a plausible motive - revenge on the whores who corrupted his sweet, wonderful Mary. We join Joseph Barnett in the early hours of August 31st 1888 as he waits in the shadows for Polly Nicholls, still treading her usual beat beside the slaughterhouse on Bucks Row. "Hello there, Ducks! Nice night, ain't it?" she greets him. The voices in his head urge Barnett to carve her open from groin to sternum. The reign of terror has begun!

Cut to present day New York, where Sir Stephen Pierce, author - director of Jack The Ripper, has brought his hit production to Broadway after a years playing to packed houses in London. Pierce's is an unashamedly sensationalist treatment of the subject with plenty of gore. He outs Barnett as the Ripper (apparently, with this novel, Andrews was the first author to do so in print). A rattled Sir Stephen is putting cast and crew through their paces prior to tonight's premier, bawling out Sir William Lockwood (Barnett) for under par butchery and Helen Stern (Polly Nicholls) whose death lacks the required gusto. He temporarily promotes an extra, Noelle Deneuve, the most astoundingly beautiful member of the cast, to play Polly to his Jack. A seething Lockwood and Stern duly up their game. As Melanie Walker (Mary Kelly) mutters to Jim Donnelly (New York Sun police reporter turned theatre critic), Pierce is a bastard but he knows what he's doing.

Opening night is a triumph. Donnelly invites Melanie for a drink once they've dropped by at the Sun office to run his review past editor Clark Grant. Approaching the building, they very nearly trip over a bloody corpse in the gutter. Margaret Crenna, 42, star of Channel 5's Alcoholic Hookers on Benefits has been disembowelled.

End of part one. P. 87 of 191.

[jamesdoig]

This looks good - I don't think I've ever seen a copy.

[dem bones]

Jun 23, 2020 21:39:18 GMT jamesdoig said:

This looks good - I don't think I've ever seen a copy.

"Good" is possibly a little contentious! To be fair, it's tighter and easier on the brain than his crazy, mixed up Satan's Manor. It even merits a minor claim to fame. According to Casebook.org, with this novel, Mark Andrews was the first author to publicly suggest Barnett as the killer.

Part two: Dark Annie

September 7th, 1888. Barnett strikes again, this time in the yard of a Hanbury street bawdy house. Exit Annie Chapman. As instructed by voices, the Ripper fills his specimen jar with bits.

Present day. Much to his dismay, Jim Donnelly has been reassigned crime reporter duties for the duration of the case. He enters into mutually beneficial alliance with Lieutenant Davis Chase, the most big-hearted cop in New York.

The New York fiend sends Jim a taunting, deliberately misspelt, typed letter, gloating over Maggie Crenna's murder. It is signed 'The Blade.' Donnelly establishes that Harry Rose, who is bankrolling the 'Jack the Ripper' season, owns a typewriter sharing similar idiosyncrasies to that used by the killer. Rose, whose fortune came courtesy the Times Square porno racket, has taken to patronising the arts in an attempt at gaining respectability. He informs Jim that Sir Stephen Pierce has been using the machine to knock out a new play.

Sir Stephen has dismissed Melanie, replaced her with young Noelle Deneuve, who, perhaps coincidentally, has now moved in with him.

The Blade strikes again near Times Square. A second hooker. This one young, attractive, and black.

Part three: Double Event

September 30th 1888. The Ripper slays Liz Stride outside the International Working Man's Club in Berner Street, then, fuming that he couldn't complete his butchery for fear of discovery, detours to Mitre Square to work over Catherine Eddowes good and proper.

Present day. Chase arrests Rose, confident he's got his man. Jim believes him mistaken. but hopes to be proved wrong. He isn't. The Blade not only reprises but improves upon the original Ripper's 'double event.' Chase and Donnelly call in on their remaining contender, Sir Stephen Pierce. Noelle, who appears to be under the influence of narcotics, assures them he's not been home and she's worried for his safety. They find his clothes, wallet and gold watch neatly piled on the beach. Murder? Suicide? Misadventure? Or has the director faked his own death?

It doesn't appear so. Noelle Deneuve, great-great-granddaughter of Jack the Ripper, confesses to her crimes ....

TBC

[dem bones]

Noelle's confession is exposed as a tissue of lies, delusions planted in her mind by the real killer, who is planning something suitably audacious to mark the anniversary of Mary Kelly's murder. Climax is suspenseful, and at least Mr. Andrews plays fair - no The Night of the Ripper shenanigans for him. Something I learnt from reading this novel is never to sing "Only a violet that I plucked from my mothers grave" while touting for punters, as doing so is guaranteed to get you butchered.

One negative. It's rare I mention typos, but it's difficult not to when a novel is riddled with them.