In 1981, Peter Sutcliffe, the 'Yorkshire Ripper', was convicted of thirteen murders and seven attempted murders. All his proven victims were women: most were prostitutes.Astonishingly, however, this is not the whole truth. There is a still-secret story of how Sutcliffe's terrible reign of terror claimed at least twenty-two more lives and left five other victims with terrible injuries. These crimes - attacks on men as well as women - took place all over England, not just in his known killing fields of Yorkshire and Lancashire.Police and prosecution authorities have long known that Sutcliffe's reign of terror was far longer and far more widespread than the public has been led to believe. But the evidence has been locked away in the files and archives, ensuring that these murders and attempted murders remain unsolved today.As a result, the families of at least twenty-two murdered women have been cheated of their right to know how and why their loved ones died: the pain of living with that may diminish over time, but it never fades away completely. Five other victims survived his attacks: their plight, too, has never been officially acknowledged.Worse still, police blunders and subsequent suppression of evidence ensured that three entirely innocent men were imprisoned for murders committed by the Yorkshire Ripper. They each lost the best parts of their adult lives, locked up and forgotten in stinking cells for more than two decades.This book, by a former police Intelligence Officer, is the story not just of those long-cold killings, of the forgotten families and of three terrible miscarriages of justice. It also uncovers Peter Sutcliffe's real motive for murder - and reveals how he manipulated police, prosecutors and psychiatrists to ensure that he serves his sentence in the comfort of a psychiatric hospital rather than a prison cell.

本書は、稀代の連続殺人鬼サトクリフが残した「公式外」の惨劇を、元警察情報官の鋭い眼差しで白日の下に晒す衝撃作です。単なる事件簿に留まらず、権力による隠蔽や冤罪という、司法制度の深淵に潜む闇を克明に描き出しています。著者の執拗な追跡は、闇に葬られた被害者たちの叫びを掬い上げ、読み手の正義感を激しく揺さぶります。 真に恐ろしいのは、犯人の凶行以上に、真実を歪めた組織の怠慢と、精神鑑定さえも操り抜いた犯人の狡猾な知性です。失われた尊厳を取り戻そうとする著者の情熱は、事実の重みを文学的なまでの緊迫感へと昇華させています。これは未解決の謎に挑むミステリーであると同時に、正義のあり方を問い直す、魂の鎮魂歌と言えるでしょう。