When most people are asked to name the first serial killer, most will mention Jack the Ripper. The unknown murderer that mutilated, tortured and killed five women over a three month period. What most people don’t know is that a full four years before Jack the Ripper struck, an unknown killer terrorized Austin, Texas. The newspapers called him the Midnight Assassin. Over the course of a year, the Midnight Assassin would kill several women using axes, knives and steel rods. On Christmas Eve, he killed two women in one hour!! This was 1884-1885 and there was no know way to obtain fingerprints or DNA evidence. The police, private detectives, and even bloodhounds were at a lost of how to catch the killer. As quickly as the killing began, they stopped. Who was the Midnight Assassin? Was he an escaped convict or asylum patient? Or as most of Austin believed, a black man? Did he leave Texas for London, England? Were he and Jack the Ripper the same person? The Midnight Assassin is a fantastic narrative non-fiction book. The tale is as gripping as any fictional mystery or thriller.