Lord Caterpillar: Jack the Ripper

In the early months of 2023, soon after I moved to Birmingham, I chanced upon a copy of Hallie Rubenhold's The Five. A remarkable book; one I would recommend to anyone. The book confirmed something I had long suspected -- serial killers, and criminals in general, are products of their society. While I don't want to take away from individual wickedness, I believe that once we solve the riddle of society, we solve the riddles of crime and evil. The Five is a remarkable book in that, by examining Victorian society, it examines how a killer like Jack the Ripper was able to thrive while his victims could not.

My book, Lord Caterpillar, begins with a fantasy sequence (inspired by the opening credits of Batman: The Animated Sequence) in which our hero, Mary Pierce, is pursued by a Jack-the-Ripper-inspired killer ("Nasty Jack", dangerously close to "Saucy Jack" from Spinal Tap; my favourite joke from that film) only for The Caterpillar to show up and throw the killer off a roof. In this way, I solve the riddle of my Victorian society. It takes an imaginary monster to remove a real monster.