This is an ambitious work that attempts to uncover a surprising connection between two of history's most infamous events. The premise is intriguing, but the execution doesn't quite live up to its potential. McMahon's research is undoubtedly extensive, and he presents a wealth of historical details and investigative theories. There are some thought-provoking insights, but it's not necessarily an easy read and may not suit all readers.

I couldn’t resist this book. I’ve been exploring the Jack the Ripper case for years. This colorful account of Francis Tumblety's connections to the Jack the Ripper case and the assassination of President Lincoln fascinated me. I value the perspective McMahon brought to his work as an Irish LGBT author.
While reading it, I tried to separate the author's methods and dubious conclusions from the entertaining journey into the high life and low life on both continents. We follow Tumblety cruising for men, being arrested for 'vice' and worse crimes, parading on horseback in attention-grabbing military-styled costumes accompanied by a succession of handsome young valets, hawking "Indian herb" 'medicines,' impersonating a doctor, ingratiating himself with powerful men, and using Irish connections and networks of powerful men who shared his enjoyment of other men.

As intriguing as this book is, for me, it fell far short of the promise in the descriptions. I checked the shorter version at online retailers today to make certain.

The author's concepts of proof and evidence differ from mine. The unsupported assertions and conclusions were distracting. Although the book's presentation of Tumblety as Jack the Ripper wasn't convincing, it succeeds on a different level by offering an informal, fluid, free-ranging narrative. It includes lives often cut, obscured, coded, vilified, sanitized, misappropriated, forbidden, and outlawed. I appreciated the author's insights into the meeting places and networks used by men at risk of being stigmatized or arrested.

Tumblety's experiences and the newspaper coverage of his exploits as he sold his bogus remedies from place to place and repeatedly ran afoul of the law are worth reading. There are intriguing connections between Tumblety and the five canonical Ripper murders and to people involved in the Lincoln assassination. For me, by setting aside the book's most inflated claims, the parts that seem to be supported by verifiable facts make the book worthwhile and satisfying.

At his best, McMahon illuminates lives that are often distorted by prejudice. Many writers past and present refer to the five canonical victims of Jack the Ripper as prostitutes. The truth of their lives was more complex than a sex worker label suggests. McMahon humanized the victims and grounded the events in the context of their impoverished circumstances. Likewise, the relationships between the flashy Tumblety and his valets shows the vulnerabilitities of men of different classes, and how they were treated under the law.

Overall, I learned new things, and at times, it was a rollicking journey. Best of all, I’m better able to envision a favorite period of history more fully peopled by people like me. That’s a gift.

Thank you, Troubadour Publishing and NetGalley for the ebook for consideration. These are my opinions.

This was a interesting concept and had that true crime element perfectly. I thought it was a fantastic history concept. Tony McMahon uses this perfectly and thought it was really well researched. It made a great case for the concept and was glad I got to read this.

This is really messy writing and it's all over the place. It's hard to read and hard to get what story or hypothesis you are trying to lay out.

This was an interesting and entertaining read, even if full of conjecture as Jack the Ripper’s identity was never fully uncovered. This book goes into the life story of one of many suspects (Dr. Francis Tumblety) who could have been the white chapel killer himself while connecting him to other well known politicians, authors, actors, doctors, and criminals of his time.

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book In exchange for an honest review.

What a fascinating story with interesting insights especially about Lincoln and his killer and the connection with Jack the Ripper. Recommended.

I received a free copy of this book in return for an honest review, through Net Galley.

This book was an uncomfortable and unappealing read. The author presents a lot of “evidence” that is to
lead the reader to believe that he was the Ripper. He often consorted with prostitutes, kept uteruses in glass jars, and was a grifter and con man. He was in England during the Ripper killings.But much of the evidence is a conflation of newspaper headlines and speculation.
His relationship with the Lincoln’s depend on the fact that the Lincolns , like many families whose men were killled in the Civil War consisted those who could contact the “ other side” for some feeling of maintaining connection with loved ones. Ok, no problem with that. It when the author began suggestion that old Honest Able had homosexual tendencies of was secretly gay- that was it for me.
The author, who is gay, his gaydar needs recalibrating
Not for me.

We will probably never know the truth about who committed the crimes of Jack the Ripper but it is very interesting trying to work it out. This book added a new possibility to the pool of suspects and I thoroughly enjoyed the analysis and explanations behind the ideas.

3.5 upped to 4
It's an entertaining read and it kept me hooked. i'm a born sceptik so I was tempted to check the conclusion.
I had fun even if I don't agree with the author
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Very interesting theory as to who Jack the Ripper was and a cool way to connect it to other sections of history. I don't necessarily believe that this man is 100% the killer but I still had a fun time and learned something along the way.

Jack the Ripper and Abraham Lincoln by Tony McMahon was an interesting read. This book uncovers the evidence, and reveals their connection to both tragedies.

Tony McMahon the author found new evidence that confirms there is a connection between two of the greatest crimes of the nineteenth century.
When a celebrity Irish-American doctor, called Francis Tumblety, was implicated in both the 1865 assassination of President Abraham Lincoln and the 1888 Jack the Ripper killings. Who would of thought it?! That, Jack the Ripper could have been involved in the murder of America's greatest President.
This gripping book tells its findings on how he put all the pieces together and the dangerous world in which Doctor Tumblety thrived.

If you like history and past murders and the mystery about them this is a book for you.

Review on Goodreads.......But Message - Review Your review contains blocked content. Please edit your review and try again. I have tried to rewrite it but message still comes up!!! Strange.

Self-styled 'Indian Herb Doctor', Francis Tumblety, has long been considered one of the suspect pool of people rumoured to have been Jack the Ripper. This book looks at Tumblety's life in both America & the East End of London, & finds that there is circumstantial evidence that suggests that he may have been involved in both the assassination of Abraham Lincoln & the Ripper killings.

Flamboyant & the consummate hustler, throughout his life Tumblety was in trouble with law for his 'confirmed bachelor' lifestyle (he was gay), yet mostly managed to skate on the charges thanks to his connections to the great & powerful. Despite Tumblety's later denials, one of the conspirators, David Herold, worked for him, & Tumblety had supposedly been seen in the company of John Wilkes Booth. Over twenty years later, Tumblety was known to be in England around the time of the canonical five Ripper murders. Indeed he was thought a possible suspect yet disappeared before he could be properly questioned.

I thought this was a very interesting read, with a lot of information about both the assassination & the Ripper murders that I had not read before. Tumblety has always been a peripheral suspect - mentioned but usually quickly discounted, & yet there are intriguing connections between him & both cases. The most compelling evidence to me is the collection of uteri that Tumblety was inordinately proud of alongside his noted hatred of women, & the two small brass rings which were similar to the ones reportedly removed from the body of Annie Chapman, one of the Ripper's victims. Alas, neither of these proves anything beyond conjecture. There's not a great deal of actual evidence of Tumblety's involvement in either case, but it is a very readable book. 3.5 stars (rounded up)

My thanks to NetGalley & publishers, Cameron Publishing & Marketing Ltd, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

Firstly I want to thank NetGalley, Cameron Publicity & Marketing and author Tony McMahon for my gifted copy of Jack the Ripper and Abraham Lincoln in exchange for my honest review.

I have always enjoyed reading about the history of Abraham Lincoln, and what true crime fan isn’t interested in Jack the Ripper… so I thought I would love this book, based on the title and synopsis.

However sadly I had to add this one to my DNF pile. I struggled to get through 25% of it, which only covered Francis Tumblety’s backstory and a whole chapter on the age-old debate was Abraham Lincoln gay or bisexual.

This is not to say I would not recommend this book to anyone, just it was not what I expected. I was hoping for a more in-depth look at how Francis Tumblety was involved in Abraham Lincoln’s death and the events leading up to and after he was arrested as being Jack the Ripper.

Unsubstantiated claims together with irrelevant ideas and conjecture over LGBT identities make this a book a struggle to read and take seriously.
My thanks nevertheless to the publishers and NetGalley for this arc in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Throughout the book, there is a visible trend: the author's original thoughts and conclusions are supported by sometimes poorly cited ideas, while citations are used to support those secondary ideas and are only tangentially related to the thoughts and conclusions that are given as the meat of each chapter. The bulk of the claims made in this work are therefore unverifiable and impossible to take as serious history. It is admirable that the author seeks to illuminate a different perspective on an established and explore ideas that do have some merit within the historical community, but to present these ideas as unquestioned fact without sufficient primary evidence does the book a grave disservice. While the book is extremely entertaining, it's difficult and sometimes even impossible to fact check or proof relevance of the author's many citations. For instance, Citation 488, to paraphrase, states that a real person was made into a character for a Netflix drama. What, exactly, does that have to do with either Lincoln or Francis Tumblety, other than fluffing up the number of citations? Stating that someone was a character on a TV show is not a source, nor is it compelling information. Abraham Lincoln was a character in Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Slayer, but that is just as irrelevant as one of the many sources within this book. Furthermore, there are exactly 576 citations within the book, and no sources cited page whatsoever.

Additionally, the author seems to have some sort of personal vendetta against what he terms “hetero-historians,” a term which occurs no less than six times across the book, who seem to be out to deny that LGBT people exist and that Lincoln, or any other historical figure mentioned within the book, could possibly be LGBT. The entire chapter about Lincoln's supposed sexuality seems to serve as an “aha! Gotcha!” written to spite these “Hetero-historians”. Lincoln's sexuality is hotly debated academically by people on every side of the fence. Quite simply it's...problematic to have this debate in the first place about a man who lived 159 years ago and would have not even had the word “homosexual” to define himself by. The word "homosexual" was coined in 1868, while Lincoln died in 1865. “Straight washing” happens all the time in the historical fields, and LGBT history gets brushed under the rug to suit bigoted, hateful agendas. However, presenting the author's suspicions as a undeniable fact is where I, an LGBT person myself, take my issue.

In conclusion, the premise of the book is interesting, and no doubt will catch people's attention, but I am somewhat dubious of the veracity of its contents, and would recommend other books on Lincoln or Jack the Ripper over this one.

Quack doctor Francis Tumblety was implicated in two of the most infamous crimes of the nineteenth century: President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, and the Jack the Ripper murders. This book uncovers the evidence, revealing his connection to both tragedies.

This is a fascinating and well-researched biography of Tumblety. There’s precious little in the way of evidence connecting him to the crimes, even though he was suspected in both.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

The jack the ripper case is honestly so fascinating. Hearing different theories about who it was just adds to the plot of the story. This book brought a new theory that I've never heard of before and it's just so interesting