The Strange Michael Folmer Affair

JOHN RIGBEY's first novel "THE STRANGE MICHAEL FOLMER AFFAIR" is now available in paperback. Circa 2003 and following the savage murder of a prostitute in London's East End, Detective Chief Inspector Michael Gregory of New Scotland Yard is deputed to investigate what proves to be the emergence of a crazed serial killer bent on emulating the crimes of nineteenth century Jack the Ripper. With his marriage failing and plagued by self-doubt, Gregory pits his wits against the killer, but when the fingerprints on a letter sent to the Yard are found to be identical to those of a man hanged for murdering a prostitute fifty years earlier - a scientific impossibility - the investigation takes an unprecedented turn. As Gregory pieces together the fragile threads of the case, the reader follows him through the slums of Victorian London to the West End of the fifties and on to the present day, culminating with the shocking and grisly final attempt of the killer to replicate the last murder of his 1888 predecessor. Written by a former Metropolitan Police criminal investigator, "Folmer" allows a fascinating insight into modern forensic investigation, as well as examining the Victorian crimes and the appalling circumstances of day to day life in the London slums. Coming to know the the modern serial killer, the reader watches as he descends into the pit of insanity and slowly comes to know the misery of his childhood and the various catalysts which have set him on the road to evil. "Folmer" may not suit the squeamish, but it is an essential read for all lovers of crime fiction in general and "Ripperologists" in particular. As one reviewer (Amazon) writes: "Buy this one at Heathrow and you won't put it down till you get to JFK "