Gavin Baddeley – författare

Five brutal murders shocked London in the summer and autumn of 1888. They have never been forgotten.The Jack the Ripper case has never been solved - the killer remains a blood-spattered silhouette. Although 'Jack' as an entity was almost certainly invented by an unscrupulous journalist, he became an archetype - decked in the top hat and cloak of a Victorian melodrama villain, stalking the fog-wreathed streets of the old East End. The numerous Ripper theories which emerged at the time tell us more about Victorian attitudes than they do about the killer's true identity.In Jack the Ripper the authors follow the grim homicidal trails that have permeated popular culture since the Whitechapel murders of 1888. It tells the victim's stories in all their desperate poignancy, and explores the theories and suspects of the burgeoning field of 'ripperology'. Conspiracy theories and myths that swirl around the case to this day, from black magicians to the royal family, are considered, as is the modern forensic view of the Ripper murders as sex crimes, with reference to disturbing modern cases such as that of the 'Plumstead Ripper'.Terrifying and unignorable, this is the ultimate book on Jack the Ripper.

A war hero, a mass murderer and a Gothic legend the world has never forgottenVlad the Impaler is one of history's most compelling and brutal characters, with a bizarre afterlife as a cult horror sensation. A hero to his countrymen, Vlad Dracula is a byword for dread. Not just for generations of Western fans of Gothic fiction and film, but also for an appalled and fascinated 15th-century readership, for whom contemporary accounts of Dracula's atrocities became the world's first horror bestsellers. Combining historical research and dramatic reconstruction with contemporary reference, here is Vlad the Impaler's dramatic career, from pampered captive of the Ottoman Sultans to exterminating angel of Christian vengeance. But in reality, was he the embodiment of unbridled cruelty or model ruler of an embattled realm?Prince Dracula also examines the role of psychological warfare and black propaganda in international politics, from the medieval torture chamber to the headlines of the modern age, and shows Vlad as an unwitting pioneer of the modern world.Plying a grisly course through medieval bloodbaths and contemporary horrors, Gavin Baddeley and Paul Woods leave no tombstone unturned in this extraordinary history.