“Logic can very quickly go out of...

“Logic can very quickly go out of the window if a clear distinction is not made between incidents caused by Freemasonry and incidents merely involving Freemasons,” we are told in The Brotherhood: The Secret World of the Freemasons by Stephen Knight (Stein & Day: $17.95). Although Knight goes out of his way to make the distinction several times, it’s not always clear that he heeds his own warning. Good information is presented in this volume, following up on Knight’s research into the Masonic connection with the Jack the Ripper case. But the tone of this examination of the Freemason movement in Britain alternates between sober research and paranoid innuendo.