Who was Inspector Frederick Abberline, the lead detective in the Jack
the Ripper case? Why did he and his fellow policemen fail to catch the
most notorious serial killer of Victorian England? What was he like as a
man, as a professional policeman, one of the best detectives of his
generation? And how did he investigate the sequence of squalid, bloody
murders that repelled - and fascinated - contemporaries and has been the
subject of keen controversy ever since? Here at last in M.J. Trow's
compelling biography of this pre-eminent Victorian policeman are the
answers to these intriguing questions. Abberline's story gives us
insight into his remarkable career, into the routines of Victorian
policing, and into the Ripper case as it was seen by the best police
minds of the day.