I enjoy historical true crime, but this book was quite disappointing. It doesn't deliver on its title or its book jacket synopsis. The crime happens, the killer is found, there's a flimsy connection to a popular crime book at the time, and Dickens is randomly thrown in for good measure. It's impeccably researched, but the writing is stiff. There's no vivid storytelling or suspense or "who done it." It reads more like a textbook, and I think it could have been much shorter. It would have been better off written as more a suspense tale for a magazine feature or a BBC or NPR radio spot. Also, the most fascinating historical tidbit is told as just an aside three pages from the end: A doctor at the time of the crime in the 1840s wrote a letter to the police explaining that everyone's handprints were unique and that they should compare the bloody handprint found with the suspect's. Fingerprinting had not been discovered yet. His letter was ignored; it seems no one understood the significance. Fifty years later, police looking through the case file discovered the letter and began to explore it. Thus, Scotland Yard thus began to use fingerprinting for the first time! The author notes that if anyone had paid attention to the letter in the 1840s, notorious crimes like Jack the Ripper could have been solved! Wow. Talk about the most fascinating part of the book. But there, now that I've told you, you don't have to read it.