Not convinced.

Well researched, well thought out, provoking portrait of a possible killer. Though we will never know the truth of the JR murders, this deep dive into an artist turned maniac makes a great case for coming close.

Patricia Cornwell's highly publicized and rather controversial look at the infamous Jack the Ripper killings is an interesting book into which the author has obviously poured countless hours of hard, painstaking research and leg work, and that, combined with the writer's evident sense of justice, is to be much praised and admired. As a thoughtful examination of one possible angle on the Ripper murders the book largely succeeds; as the airtight posthumous indictment it is supposed to be, however, it comes up short.

Cornwell makes several highly questionable decisions in making her case. She relies heavily on some rather tenuous DNA from the time of the killings, evidence which in this scenario is far too thin for the emphasis the author attempts to hang on it. Her analysis of the suspect's psychological makeup and actions during the period in question are composed largely of speculation and guesswork, devoid of the kind of hard evidence I had hoped to discover. Cornwell's confidence in the numerous "Ripper Letters" the police received at the time is hard to swallow, and requires some highly unlikely--though admittedly not impossible--legerdemain on the part of her suspect. Most disturbing is that Cornwell seems to have chosen this suspect very quickly after looking at the Ripper case file, and one has the feeling she has then simply rearranged much of the available information to suit her own presupposition. That her suspect was at least eccentric and may have had some glaring personal deficiencies is hardly debatable, but that does not automatically make him a serial killer.

As a literary work Cornwell's book suffers from a pair of serious drawbacks. First, the arrogance with which she approaches the case is nearly embarrassing. She shows no respect whatsoever for others who have published theories on the infamous Whitechapel slayings, and very little for the police who actually worked on the case at the time. Cornwell's apparent disdain for those who have gone before her is annoying and frequently distracting. Second, the book is badly organized and heavily padded, as the author jumps from one train of thought to the next in no recognizable pattern so as to frequently leave the reader backpedaling to try to catch up, a problem exacerbated by the fact that the book is about a hundred pages too long. Many of Cornwell's personal commentaries and historical notes are repeated over and over to no obvious purpose. A tighter, more pointed text would have benefitted the author's case immensely.

Despite its serious weaknesses, "Portrait of a Killer" is a commendable book in many respects. I would certainly recommend it to Ripper buffs, students of Victorian England, or mystery fans in general. If the author's evidence is not irrefutable, it is at least thought-provoking, and evidently Ms. Cornwell continues to follow up on some of the evidence as we speak, so perhaps an updated edition will tie up some of the loose ends. Maybe she's even right. Time will perhaps tell. But as of right now "Portrait of a Killer," though admirable, hardly lives up to its subtitle. A thoughtful, well-researched re-examination of the most infamous serial killer of all time? Certainly. But case closed? *No.*

Spread-eagled, naked on rucked bedcovers in some crummy backstreet crib. Is the woman alive or dead? Is a lurking figure in the shadows, her murderer? Patricia Cornwall’s work of non-fiction detection wants us to look at Walter Sickert’s merciless take on the underbelly of London and expects, after some persuasive argument, to agree that for once and all, beyond reasonable doubt, the case is closed.

But is it? For my money it’s not. Sickert’s Camden Town Murder Series was meant to shock. Painted in a period when gothic horror was in full flight, enjoyed and loathed at the same time and tongues hanging out for more, wherever it could be found. And in 1908 after a gruesome set of murders in North – not East - London Sickert got himself subjects and settings gruesome enough to satisfy most tastes. Which is not to say he murdered the victims.

Patricia Cornwell tries her best, compiles evidence, tries to fit it to the facts and when it doesn’t, points to Sickert’s paintings as though they are photographic proof of the artist’s involvement in the Ripper killings.

DNA … no significant match. Fingerprints … circumstantial. There’s still another book in this for someone with a brighter idea.


You may enjoy some other of my related reviews:

Virginia Woolf: Walter Sickert: A Conversation
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Stella Bowen: Drawn from Life
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I liked this book because Patricia Cornwall presented quite a stirring case for her argument that the killer was a rather famous artist named Walter Sickert. She compared pictures painted by the artist with photos from the crime scene and of the victims, postmortem, and the similarities gave me shivers! She created this protrait of Sickert with such passion, convinced she really has solved this case, that I couldn't help but get excited, too. It didn't hurt that I read it the week leading up to a trip to London, finishing the book on the plane just before landing. I had a chance to walk around in one of Jack the Ripper's hunting grounds, making it all the more exciting. It wasn't until I got back to the States that I was able to do some research on my own that I learned just how far off the experts consider Cornwall to be. Honestly, it was a fun read and I don't regret reading it, but my advice to anyone who may be interested: enjoy the hype, but take it all with a tiny grain of salt!

Der Ehrgeiz der Autorin treibt sie zu einigen gewagten Schlussfolgerungen, die letztlich auf einen Rufmord an einer toten Person hinauslaufen, ohne dass letztlich ein schlüssiger Beweis geliefert wird - tatsächlich sind die Thesen dieses Buches von anderen Forschern mit guten Argumenten entkräftet worden. Bedenklich und kein Ruhmesblatt.

I had to give up on this one after just over 100 pages. I didn't like the writing style and I was quite bored. The story didn't really follow any kind of timeline or logical progression, it was all over the place. I was also disappointed because I expected it to be more scientific, with actual facts, but it seems to be what the author's personal opinions are based on very circumstantial evidence. She herself admits on numerous occassions that there was no evidence to back up whatever she was talking about at the time. I can't think of a single fact in the 100+ pages I read that definitively links Walter Sickert to Jack the Ripper, which surely is the entire point of the story! She claims to be able to prove he was The Ripper and has no doubts, but I saw nothing to back this up. She also makes tenous connections to things that are irrelevant (the chapter on Joseph Merrick (The Elephant Man) for instance), which was starting to get on my nerves. It's a shame because I was really interested in reading this book.

Oy.

I'm one of those folks who is forever entranced by the Jack the Ripper saga. Victorian crime in the grimy, fogbound, poverty-ridden streets of London. I've even done the walking tour. So, I picked up this volume with high anticipation.

Oy.

Prior to this, I had never read a Patricia Cornwell book, so I was not a follower of her mystery books. Safe to say, after making it through this "expose" of the Ripper, I won't be reading any other Cornwell books. She could have made her case fairly quickly, but instead she goes on and on and on and on. Since I have always felt the responsibility of reading a book from cover-to-cover, this meant torture. By the time I finished, I had lost interest in Jack the Lad.

In fact, this is the kind of book that has to sit in quarantine on a bookshelf, because it's so creepy the other books want nothing to do with it. Like goths in high school.

Book Season = Winter (hope for a blackout)

(copied from my amazon review)
If a prosecutor went to court and presented a case against Walter Sickert with the evidence the author gives us in this book, the judge would laugh hysterically and require of the prosecutor to chose another profession.

So let's see what are some of the evidence that would make Sickert the killer. He knew a guy who was american and laughed with a "ha ha". In the ripper letters, the ripper writes "ha ha", so he's gotta be Sickert! Or because Sickert occasionally wrote on a certain type of paper, that happened to be the same type as the one used in the ripper letters, then it had to be him! And he wrote most of the 250 (????) letter jack the ripper sent to the police too! Also, Sickert drew pictures that were called jack the ripper and showed women being mutilated by a man, so he's guilty, who else would paint such things? Sickert was a sexually frustrated man who was very morbidic, selfish, weird, a pathological liar and since he lived in london, he had to be the ripper, right?

This all sounds very stupid doesn't it? This is just a brief summary of Cornwell's ridiculous evidence. She goes on and on about the type of paper used in the ripper letters, and does say that maybe even if the paper is the same it does not mean Sickert is the killer, yet she decides that he is. From the beginning she does not just accuse him, she tells the world that she knows and refers to the Ripper as Sickert. On what basis? That maybe he wrote one of the hoax letters because the handwriting was very similar. That's the only evidence i agree with, that maybe he wrote a letter. And so what? Does that make him the killer? How can it be proven that those letters were real anyway?

The couple points i agree with: he did not have to be a doctor like often suspected. You don't need to be one to open someone's abdomen and take their organs out. It's not surgery, no skill is needed. I further agreed with her as she explained how each murder was more and more gruesome which showed how he was learning his "craft".

I give this book two stars because i like the profile she makes of the killer, even if her whole sickert thing is a stretch of her imagination. And if she's right, it's by luck, not thanks to her investigating skills. Sickert could be the killer, just like every single other man living in London at the time, but she was not able to prove it one bit.

It'll never be solved, his name was Jack the Ripper, that's who he was, that was his name, not Walter Sickert, Ha ha!

Patricia Cornwell may be a brilliant author, however I do not deem this book to be brilliant. To actually have printed on the front cover 'Case Closed' and to say that no more looking needs to be done is completely farcical. I agree with other views that she has admitted on many a page that the evidence she found in many areas was inconclusive or not 100% accurate, so how she justifies that she has found the true Jack after a century plus has gone by leaves me gobsmacked.

There are insights into the Whitechapel murders of 1888 and various others thereafter that were left unsolved, however I'm sure one could find out these themselves by watching documentaries, dramas and reading other sources. It may well be that she has possibly found the person who wrote many a Jack the Ripper letter through some forensic science measures, however, even if this were the case how are we to know without doubt and how are we to believe that the writer of these letters is also the culprit of the murders?

It was an interesting read, although there were pages of waffle regarding forensic science, with Patricia Cornwell almost listing the numerous tests that could be carried out but without really explaining them in much detail. Also, I find it difficult to believe that she can name but one man throughout this book and accuse him of being Jack the Ripper when she doesn't actually go into the details of all the suspects that have been and being able to eliminate them from her investigation. She barely gives any of them a mention!

My final point about this book regards the order of the chapters. Although throughout the book the main known victims and their circumstances are in the order that they took place the chapters go from 1888 straight to 1902, then 1889, 1896, 1862.......It doesn't make much sense. It would have been beneficiary to the reader if she had begun and finished the book in a chronological order, almost biographical on Walter Sickert. This book is very scatty and I believe that is possibly how Patricia Cornwell's investigation went!!

Patricia Cornwell knows exactly how to write to keep her audience entertained. If you're looking to read a detailed, yet put together book of Jack the Ripper, I highly recommend this book.

Okay, so, I enjoyed the premise of this and I am very much into the process of trying to piece together clues that Jack the Ripper May have left but I found this book just to be a boast of the work that Cornwell did.

Every piece of evidence that was used to exemplify her points began with “he may have” or “perhaps he” or “he could have”. There was no concrete evidence to back up what points were made and connections were tenuous and circumstantial. I found myself rolling my eyes every time one flimsy point was connected to speculation she stated three chapters ago.

There were so many random and seemingly irrelevant stories that clogged down the overall theory that was trying to be crafted and found myself skim reading over the stories that really played no cohesive or imperative role besides trying to justify Cornwell’s claims.
I enjoy the concept and I love true crime but this just wasn’t for me.