Title: Trespass
Author: Sally Spedding
In: The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper Stories (Maxim Jakubowski)
Rating Out of 5: 4 (Really good read!)
My Bookshelves: Crime, Historical fiction
Dates read: 29th December 2019
Pace: Slow
Format: Short story
Publisher: Robinson
Year: 2015
5th sentence, 74th page: Pani Bielski, good morning.
She teaches young boys in the Jewish quarter of Whitechapel. And when she realises what a monster she’s teaching… things begin to go pearshaped.
I seem to have really enjoyed origin stories this year. Something about them completely draws me in and I like the way that a well-known character can be seen as an immature being. This origins story was a lot freakier. Because it was the beginning of Jack the Ripper. When he was a small child and everyone else ignored what he was becoming. So much, much creepier.
There was somehow something much more terrifying about this Ripper story. Probably because it was a small child. Children as killers and budding sociopaths freaks me out. Which is probably why I don’t like dolls (but that’s a conversation for another day). Using a small boy in this made me cringe in abject horror and feel incredibly, intensely uncomfortable.
At the conclusion of this story, I literally got up, and went and found my dog. The big one. That weighs almost two thirds of my weight… and gave him a huge, gigantic hug. It made me feel just a little bit better.
Earth and Skye 
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