A WIRRAL author with an interest in the Jack the Ripper mystery is releasing a new book.

Philip Davies, from Wallasey, is a long-standing student of the unidentified serial killer active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London in the late 1880s.

He said: "For 130 years the identity of the world’s most notorious serial killer, Jack the Ripper, has remained a mystery, but all along the answer was hiding in plain sight.

"The killer was literally spelling out his involvement in a series of anagrams and cryptic clues, decades before the invention of the crossword.

"Now his identity is revealed beyond doubt in a gripping exposé which disregards existing dogma and draws on contemporary accounts, press reports, and legal records to finally solve the riddle of the world’s longest cold case."  

Victorian celebrity, nationally acclaimed composer and baritone Michael Maybrick was first named in 2015 as the prime suspect in Bruce Robinson’s book, They All Love Jack. 

Funny Little Games

Now in his new book, Funny Little Games, Davies expands on Robinson’s assertions, to "expose a serial killer obsessed with revenge, with a deep-seated hatred of prostitutes following a traumatic adolescent encounter with a Liverpool prostitute".  

The 78-year-old added: "I was first drawn into the involvement of Michael’s brother James, a former member of his own Masonic Chapter in Liverpool, and a Ripper suspect, named in 1992 by Shirley Harrison in ‘The Diary of Jack the Ripper’.

"With Michael also a suspect, I began investigating hitherto unexplored aspects of the murders, and pieces began falling into place."

In Funny Little Games, Davies demonstrates how, as a member of the Middlesex Rifles Volunteers, involving regular visits into Whitechapel, Maybrick had the inspiration of forming St Jude’s Vigilance Association, enabling nightly patrols of the streets of Whitechapel, befriending the locals, and carefully choosing his victims.

In self-styled 'funny little games’, those victims were specifically selected for their names, which, one by one, revealed an anagram of Michael Maybrick.

Likewise, Davies shows how the locations of the murders created a similar anagram, and forming the shape of an important symbol within Freemasonry and eliminating any element of coincidence. 

Davies' soon to be released sequel, The London Medicine, moves from London to Liverpool and explores Michael Maybrick’s involvement in the death of his brother James, and the devious implication of his wife Florence.

A litany of dramatic twists and turns, with an ending in line with the Maybrick family crest, Time Reveals All. 

Funny Little Games and The London Medicine will be published on October 31.