The Study In Red Trilogy

Acknowledgements 2020 Updated

2020

2020A Study in Red, The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper was originally published in 2008, by the recently defunct Double Dragon Publishing. I was therefore extremely grateful to Miika Hanilla at Next Chapter Publishing, the publisher of over twenty of my more recent works, who agreed to publish new, updated versions of the three book in my Ripper trilogy, A Study in Red, Legacy of the Ripper and Requiem for the Ripper in addition to my novel Pestilence. Without Miika’s help and confidence in my work, the four books would have been consigned to the annals of history and been unavailable to readers any longer.

A Study in Red, The Secret Journal of Jack the RipperA Study in Red, Legacy of the RipperRequiem for the RipperPestilenceI must also say a big thankyou to my researcher/proof-reader, Debbie Poole who has painstakingly helped to check and update the original manuscript.

And now, the original acknowledgements, which remain as relevant today as they were at the time of the original publication.

2008

2008In the course of writing ‘A Study in Red’ I was amazed at how many people became involved along the way. It is with them in mind that I take this brief opportunity to say thank you, for without their help and co-operation the story would never have been completed.

Much of the source material used as reference notes by the character of Robert in the following pages was derived from my own references to the most comprehensive website on the Jack the Ripper case I could find. I thus convey my thanks to Stephen P Ryder for his generous permission to use the www.casebook.org name in the text of the novel, and as a source of reference. Equally, thanks are due to Edward McMillan of the Police Information Centre of the now defunct Lothian and Borders Police, (Now Police Scotland), for his invaluable help in tracing the history of the historical City of Edinburgh Police force. His knowledge of the subject was invaluable in putting together an important section of the story.

I would never have reached the final page of the book without the inestimable patience and hard work of my own team of volunteer proof readers, who took it upon themselves to read, critique, and suggest changes to word or plot where they felt it necessary. So again, a big thank you to Graeme S Houston, editor of Capture Weekly Literary Journal, and to the late Malcolm Davies and Ken Copley, both sadly no longer with us, and to Sheila Noakes, your help was invaluable. The final reader of the raw proof of the book was my dear wife Juliet who has spent many lonely hours as I sat at work on the novel, then reading and correcting my errors, and has kept me going on the many occasions when I thought I’d never complete the work.

There have been others who have encouraged or given small ‘sound bites’ of help and advice along the way, and to all of them I also extend my gratitude. I hope the book does them all justice.