Saucy Jack

by Sharon Pollock

In Saucy Jack the author implicates the most upper echelons of British society in the brutal murders of London's prostitutes. In a stately Victorian drawing room, two old friends, James Kenneth Stephen, a scholar, and his former pupil, Prince Albert Victor, Queen Victoria's nephew and heir to the throne, dance around the truth of the identity of London's most notorious killer, and while a tale of psychological intrigue is played out, an unravelling of tested friendship, betrayal, duplicity, and motive is revealed. With the single female character of Kate, an actress hired by James to re-enact the death throes of the prostitutes, the author creates an ominous presence, both disturbing and haunting. Saucy Jack undoes the mythology surrounding the killer, weakens his place in the ranks of history's powerful, and instead, gives a voice and a face to his anonymous victims.