The Limehouse Golem

An accused and convicted murderer, 31 year old Elizabeth Cree, was to face her final audience, only a small selected crowd had been hand picked for the purpose and being the performer she was she wouldn’t let it pass and so she spoke her last words, before the noose tightened , “Here we are again”. The date is 6th April 1881 and the place is Camberwell Prison London.
The story drops back to be pieced together from the trial of Elizabeth Cree, the diaries of her deceased husband and her own story leading up to her death. Set in the East End of London in the 1800’s the streets are paved with filth and the air is laced with smog but if some of the residents could scrape enough money together there was an escape, just for a little while. A trip across the Thames paying a penny to the ferry man delivered the theatres and a comical look at life together with a sing song for all. On one of these nights, 10th September 1880,  June Quig was murdered, ok a dead body in London, a prostitute at that and on the poorer side of the Thames, not really breaking news except in the way she was displayed. As a second murder victim soon follows, grotesquely disfigured and displayed again, the killer gained a name this time, The Limehouse Golem.
This is some wicked story that throws you about as a reader and whoa what a macabre killing machine this person is. No hesitation, no regret, no idea who is doing this. A work of art to be shared. The Golem is a fictional character created from myths as an artificial being by magicians or a Jewish Rabi in the 15th century. Now mobs were heard running through the streets after seeing the Golem for it only to disappear, but the police worked from evidence and facts alone not hysteria. But the body count continued to rise.
This book has now been made into a big screen film to be released very soon and if it is anything to go by it is going to be tremendous Block Buster. Peter Ackroyd created two sides of Victorian London, one where the poor went to the theatre to laugh and forget their lives and the other where fantasy retold the horrors of the outside in the theatre to make the poor accept the tragedies easier.
The murders, although totally macabre have a sort of morbid fascination about their execution as you glimpse how this killer’s mind works and how what is happening is seen through their eyes. It isn’t a place you want to stay for long.  The Victorian Music Halls were the sanity for the poor of London and were stars were created like Dan Leno, was one of the funniest performers of his time. This is a book built on atmosphere and was already easy to play in my mind as I read. I love to read a book before I see the film as it makes for a more intense viewing. I have been in this killers mind …………………..
I wish to thank the publisher for an invitation to read this novel, this review is an honest reflection of my thoughts.