The Five – Hallie Rubenhold

The Five are the five women murdered in the Whitechapel area of London between August and November 1888. They are known collectively as the victims of Jack the Ripper and are generally dismissed as ‘just prostitutes’ who if not asking for their fate, put themselves in harm’s way through their choice of lifestyle.

Hallie Rubenhold dismantles this misconception, victim by victim, by forensic examination of their lives and times. One by one, she tells their stories, cradle to grave, and it is often the early years that set them on a track to their tragic end in a late-Victorian world where working class women had few options. Employment in service, marriage, childbirth, and household drudgery was as good as it got. To lose a job, or worse a husband, or a husband’s job, invited financial hardship and homelessness. To ease the pain and drudgery with a sip of medicinal gin was often the start of a slippery slope to addiction, disownment, and ruin.

This broad trajectory was followed, in various forms, by Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, and Catherine Eddowes, who all struggled through to their mid-forties before they were killed. None of these were actively involved in the sex trade. They were, however, homeless and formed transitory relationships with men – how else to get protection on the street, a bed for the night and something to eat? Between such times they were on their own and resourceless. But for the Victorian police and press, no distinction was made between women who walked the street at night because they had nowhere to sleep and those who did so to drum up trade. Only the last victim, Mary Jane Kelly, killed aged twenty-five, was an acknowledged sex worker.

The book gives a fascinating and highly readable insight into the social conditions in parts of late nineteenth century London, where poverty, drink, and homelessness characterised most lives. The lives of the Five are placed in this historical context and given a sympathetic airing as human beings, flawed certainly, but no less deserving to be seen and known in life as much as in death.

The Girl with All the Gifts – M R Carey

Ten-year-old Melanie lives in a post-apocalyptic England that is all she has known. The end of the world that the surviving grown-ups knew came twenty years ago in the form of a virulent fungus that attacks the human brain and central nervous system. The hi-jacked body becomes zombie-like, with hunger for the flesh of the uninfected. Hence their name – the hungries. Anyone bitten but not killed becomes a new host, so picture a cross between athlete’s foot and a vampire!

The uninfected humans that survive, manage as best they can. Some, the ‘junkers’, follow an itinerant life, scavenging food, shelter, and technology from the remains of civilisation. Others are more proactive and have retreated into a fortified enclave, the Beacon, where they work to find a solution to eradicating the hungries. As part of that effort, an outstation has been established to enable scientists to research the precise effect the fungus has on the brain. This is where Melanie comes in.

Some post-apocalyptic children like her are clearly infected but have not yet developed the zombie-like symptoms. A sample has been rounded up in the hope they could provide a clue to researchers, who have two approaches. Educational psychologist, Helen Justineau, gives them lessons to assess their capacity to learn, which is impressive. Neurosurgeon, Caroline Caldwell, removes their brains and slices them up for analysis. The security of the base is the responsibility of Sergeant Parks who must be alert to the threats from hungries and the junkers outside the fence, and of the children whom he regards as the enemy within.

Melanie is seen as a vulnerable child by Justineau, a dangerous animal by Parks, and a specimen by Caldwell. When the base is attacked and overrun, the four escape in a damaged Humvee vehicle and attempt to make it to the Beacon. Mutual loathing, distrust, fear, and incomprehension have to be managed in the face of the existential threat all around.

The narrative is shared between the main protagonists, which gives differing perspectives and depth. The post-apocalyptic landscape is vividly portrayed and once the premiss is accepted, the outcomes are credible enough. Though majoring in tension and action, there are enough ethical issues thrown up to make this more than just a very good thriller.

My Sister, the Serial Killer – Oyinkan Braithwaite

Korede, the narrator, is a nurse, well versed in the cleaning properties of bleach and not fazed by handling the dead. That makes her the ideal person for her sister, Ayoola, to call when she has stabbed her boyfriend to death. It’s self-defence, she claims; again. In fact, he is the third, but when Korede tells Ayoola that this qualifies her as a serial killer, it is like water off a duck’s back. She’s right back on Instagram. It is left to Korode to do the worrying for both of them.

It is a responsibility she is accustomed to both while their abusive father was alive and since he died leaving their mother drifting in denial. When Ayoola goes astray, she shrugs and looks pretty, and Korede gets the blame for letting her get in trouble.

That is why Korede likes to keep home and work separate. In the hospital she is respected, if not liked, for her total professionalism. She is comfortable with that; except she would like Dr Tade Otumu to like her a bit more for herself as well as her work ethic. She holds a torch for him but realises she lacks the obvious feminine charms that her sister has in abundance. Lacking any other confidante, she unloads her romantic and criminal troubles onto the patient in room 313, Muhtar Youtai. He is in an irreversible coma and so in no position to judge her.

All seems fine, if not ideal, until two things happen. First, Ayoola turns up at the hospital for a social visit; Dr Otumu is smitten. Second, Muhtar Youtai miraculously exits his coma with perfect recall of Korede’s one-sided conversations. That all makes Dr Otumu a prospective corpse, and the sisters in danger of a life sentence.

The first person, present tense narrative gives the prose a pleasing immediacy, and the short chapters hurry it along too. The location is Lagos, and though the action mainly takes place indoors at the hospital or at home, the subsidiary characters bring in the flavour of the Nigerian setting.

It is good, dark humour that also has something to say on the nature of sisterhood.

Olive Kitteridge – Elizabeth Strout

The tall figure of Olive Kitteridge, retired teacher of mathematics in Crosby, Maine, stalks the pages of this book. Sometimes she takes centre stage but as often she hovers in the background or just makes a cameo appearance in the loosely connected episodes.

Taken together, the chapters weave a portrait of contemporary lives in New England, with relationships to the fore. Olive’s role as wife, mother, mother-in-law (from hell), friend, ex-teacher, hostage, and airline security risk are all explored through gems of narration shot through with humanity, sensitivity, and understated humour.

Nothing much happens, but events and incidents that are small in the grand scheme of things are shown to be major in the impact they have on the individual. Olive’s character – spikey, self-reliant, and dismissive of the failings of others – is a delight.

A wise and insightful read.