Hallie Rubenhold set out to restore the humanity of Jack the Ripper’s five victims with this book and she has succeeded. “In order to keep [Jack] alive,” she writes, “we have had to forget his victims. We have become complicit in their diminishment” (348). In painstakingly piecing together the lives of these women, she has also demonstrated how precarious Victorian life was for women: expectations were low but strict, jobs were few and underpaid, and illness could destroy one’s health and source of support capriciously. The picture that emerges of these five is of a group of women representing thousands more: coping with poverty, illness, death, pregnancies unwanted, and children loved but also burdensome. All in all, these women had few options, but they were resilient in making their way despite the odds against them. If we know anything now about serial killers, it is that they are opportunists, and Polly, Kate, Mary Jane, Elizabeth, and Annie could have been any of us.