The Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America’s First Serial Killer

Everyone knows Jack the Ripper, the serial killer who stalked the streets of Whitechapel and then vanished, but did you know that the city of Austin, Texas, of all places, was home to its own Ripper-like murderer years before Jack sliced up his first streetwalker?

The Midnight Assassin takes us into the formative years of the Texas capital as it was held hostage by a cunning and devious beast, who brutalized numerous victims, claiming the lives of several women. Hollandsworth painstakingly recounts the events of the time, assembling scant fragments of evidence from newspaper coverage, spotty record keeping, and interviews with descendants of those involved. And the portrait he paints is one of a terrorized city, a police force outmaneuvered at every turn, and a mystery as engaging as it is frustrating in its lack of answers.

Dark and fascinating and confounding all at once, The Midnight Assassin is a travelogue of a terrifying moment in time, one that steps back and allows you to experience that moment and make your own assumptions. Hollandsworth has no great reveal or ace in the hole when it comes to the murderer’s identity, he’s merely the ringmaster of a particularly brutal and mysterious media circus.