Legacy of the Ripper

Acknowledgements Updated

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS UPDATED

2020

A Study in Red, The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper, Legacy of the Ripper, and Requiem for the Ripper were 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 books in my Ripper trilogy, 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.

To Juliet, my wife, as usual, my undying thanks for her unfailing support.

I must also say a big thank you 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.

2009

This sequel to ‘A Study in Red – The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper’ owes much to a number of people whose invaluable help and support went into creation the final manuscript. My thanks are due to Frogg Moody and the members of the committee of The Whitechapel Society 1888. Not only have I learned much from my membership of this august organisation, but the committee generously gave their permission for me to use the name of the society within the book, when I could just as easily have used a fictitious organisation with which to link the character of Alice Nickels. Their generosity has helped lend a greater realism to ‘Legacy of the Ripper’ than I could have hoped for.

To my friends and fellow Ripperologists at www.jtrforums.com, I also add my thanks, in particular to Howard Brown and Mike Covell. As a source of information and support to anyone with an interest in the Whitechapel murders, their pages are a goldmine of information. Special thanks go to Howard and Mike, for their continued support and encouragement.

I owe a great deal of thanks to Deron at Double Dragon Publishing for his confidence in my work and for his wonderfully innovative cover design, and to Lea Schizas, my editor, who does a superb job of ‘tightening up’ and I’m sure, improving my manuscripts.

Mario Domina, of Thunderball Films LLC, was a wonderful source of encouragement as the novel drew to a close, as I found it hard going to complete the final chapters, as was my great friend Graeme S Houston.

A word of thank goes to Brian Gallagher for his occasional and priceless insights in the field of criminal psychology, and for providing me with reams of reading material on the subject.

My gratitude also goes to all those readers who purchased ‘A Study in Red – The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper’ and made it the success story it has become.

Finally, it would be impossible for me to say thank you without including my wife in these acknowledgments. Over the course of my creating ‘A Study in Red’ and ‘Legacy of the Ripper’ Juliet has now ‘lived’ with Jack the Ripper and his crimes for over four years. Her patience and her fortitude in reading every, at times harrowing chapter as they’ve been created is worthy of praise I can never rightly bestow. Her help, opinions and advice have been invaluable.