The Devil's Work

The Devil's Work explores Australia's Jack the Ripper and the serial murders that shocked the world.

Frederick Deeming was a murderer, swindler, bigamist, and a suspect in the Jack the Ripper killings. He was considered the most hated man in the world. Claiming to be haunted by the ghost of his dead mother, Deeming spent years roaming the planet under various aliases, preying on the innocent, the gullible, and the desperate.

In 1892, the discovery by Australian police of the body of one of his wives in a shallow concrete grave triggered one of the greatest manhunts in history. This investigation exposed a further series of grisly murders—those of his first wife and four children—that stunned the Victorian era.

The Devil's Work is a gothic journey into the twisted mind of a serial killer, set in the dying years of the 19th century when science and religion had collided, and some of the world's most powerful and influential people believed in spirits and an afterlife. It reveals Deeming's crime spree across three continents, raising fresh questions about his role in the Jack the Ripper killings and culminating in his sensational trial where he was defended by a future Australian Prime Minister who believed he could also speak to the dead.

Born bad or simply mad? It's time to meet Frederick Deeming, the man known and reviled throughout the United States, England, and Australia as the Criminal of the Century.