Recalling the 'Blackout Ripper' of World War II London

By TRISH CHOATE
Wednesday, March 14, 2007

"IN THE DARK: THE TRUE STORY OF THE BLACKOUT RIPPER." By Simon Read (Berkley Books.)

A war was on when the killing started, but the victims' uniforms were lipstick and lace.

Feminine charms brandished by those ladies of the night were no weapon against the "Blackout Ripper," who terrorized London during World War II.

British transplant Simon Read enthralls with a historical tale about a serial killer with a thing for blondes. "In the Dark: The True Story of the Blackout Ripper" covers five bloody days in February 1942 and the aftermath of a man who murdered almost as many women as Jack the Ripper in a fraction of the time.

"He killed with a really lightning-fast ferocity, which did stun investigators," said Read, a 32-year-old journalist in the San Francisco Bay area.

Gordon Frederick Cummins stalked prostitutes by night, striking under an enforced darkness that was supposed to protect the city from air raids. By day, he was a member of the Royal Air Force, a braggart who couldn't hold onto a pound.

The book is a gripping narrative of four killings, two attempted slayings and Scotland Yard's quest to catch a murderer before he strikes again.

Part of the Blackout Ripper's downfall was at his fingertips.

Scotland Yard revolutionized the use of fingerprinting and trained some police departments in the United States in it, Read said. The foremost fingerprint expert of the day, Detective Chief Superintendent Frederick Cherrill, was instrumental in proving the case.

"He was a fun character because he was an artist as well, and he had a colorful childhood," Read said.

The reader also gets acquainted with pathologist Bernard Spilsbury.

"He was considered the real-life Sherlock Holmes because of his ability to sort of talk to the dead through his autopsies," Read said.

He drew much of his information for the book from police reports.

"The nice thing about Scotland Yard police reports are they're almost written like a novel, themselves," Read said, "with quotation marks and dialogue and he said, she said, and so they were extremely descriptive."

Besides having elements of a police procedural, Read's book also portrays the seamy London underworld of those times.

"It was blacked out from 1939 until the last day of war, so they're in the dark for quite a few years, six years or so," Read said. "And because rationing was enforced strictly back then, it gave rise to a black market, which gave rise to crime."

London was also the center of the war effort for a time with different nationalities pouring in, he said.

Read didn't set out to be that rare breed _ a historic true-crime author _ but he was drawn to history and fascinated by crime. He doesn't see himself writing contemporary true crime.

Read doesn't want to have victims' family members relive everything by interviewing them for a book. It was bad enough doing it for newspaper articles.

Read has worked at the Tri-Valley Herald in Pleasanton, Calif., and now works for the Contra Costa Times, covering the city of Antioch.

"When I was a crime reporter, I covered several trials and a couple of murder trials," he said. "And you get to know the family members of the victims, and you see how completely devastated they were."

"In the Dark" is his second historical true-crime book, and he's hoping to get his third published, "A War of Words."

The story takes place in the 1880s in San Francisco and is about the murder of the co-founder and publisher of the San Francisco Chronicle, Read said. A public war of words leads up to him being shot down in the middle of the newsroom.

(Washington reporter Trish Choate can be reached at choatet(at)shns.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com)