Portrait of a Killer - Jack the Ripper

I tried to watch the tv special Patricia Cornwell had about this book. I tried to, and turned it off after the first 15 minutes. For a documentary about Jack the Ripper and his victims, why was she always there, and why was she the only topic? The end for me came with her and her crew walking towards New Scotland Yard--my God! Maybe it was not deliberate, but honestly, the scene was right out of The Right Stuff, that scene where the astronauts are walking over the tarmac to the launch bay. Or of gunfighters walking down a deserted, dusty street on their way to a showdown. That was too much for me. Then I tried to read the book. Maybe I did, I'm not sure. I could have, I can't prove I did, but then again I can't prove I didn't, either. So obviously I must have, mustn't I? Which was the evidence against Walter Sickert. As for his drawing from real life, as for his not being able to draw 'disturbing scenes' without having first seen those, then all I can say is, the illustrators (for instance) for the Honor Harrington and Miles Vorkosigan novels must have contacts and capabilities far beyond mere mortals. Not to mention those who work for Marvel and DC.

Patricia Cornwell 'Portrait of a killer: Jack the Ripper - Case closed'

Case closed?

Sometimes books are connected in the strangest of ways.
A few weeks ago I read the novel Theatre by William Somerset Maugham, see my review on this page https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... On the cover of my edition there was a painting by Walter Richard Sickert. Being an art lover I looked up the painting https://www.goodreads.com/photo/user/... also put it on my Goodreads page.
In the mean while learned that Walter Richard Sickert was a close friend of the famous painter James Abbot McNeill Whistler, nothing word further mentioning. Case closed?
Well not really. A few weeks later the great small news was that finally, after 126 years, there was prove of the identity of the famous London killer Jack the Ripper, modern DNA technique helped a little there, the bad guy was the Polish-born Aaron Kosminski. In that same news real I learned that post-impressionist painter Walter Richard Sickert was one of the many suspect. See picture of the six main suspects.

Not only was he a suspect but by Patricia Cornwell in her only nonfiction novel 'Portrait of a killer: Jack the Ripper – Case Closed' (2002) already proven guilty.
Aldo before here two other authors had also pointed out Walter Richard Sickert, Patricia Cornwell's book released much controversy. Which made her claim that when she was a man or/ and British her theory would have been accepted. Overall Cornwell provides little evidence for her theory.

Interesting to note that Cornwell uses the same DNA technique to point out Walter Richard Sickert – taken from a stamp he supposed to have used – as is now used to blame Aaron Kosminski.
So 'case closed' I am afraid not. Not in the 19th century, not in 2002 and also not in 2014 I am afraid. As with many mysteries, the searching here is much more interesting that the solution.
So true ore falls, for sure an interesting read and we can take an active part in the searching, As long as we don't follow Patricia all the way and do some detective work our self.

Patricia Cornwell 'Portrait of a killer: Jack the Ripper - Case closed'

I'm fairly new to the Ripperology cult and reading Cornwell,s case closed account of who JTR was has me between a rock and a hard place.

The reading is fine for someone who just picked the book because it sounded interesting, but who doesn't have a shred of expertise in solving homicides. However, I do have crime investigative experience, and as I was reading the book I had doubts about the strength of her case against Sickert. So much speculation, actually about 95% speculation and 5% valid evidence in my opinion, so I'm disappointed in this book.

Not that she isn't convincing, because if you become infected with her enthusiasm and certainty, you can easily believe what she believes. Not to say she isn't right, but I seriously doubt the evidence she has spent so much money on would hold up in today's courtroom with reasonable doubt being the standard for a jury to pronounce a defendant not guilty.

She is very shrewd in connecting dots that I didn't think were there to connect and I found myself confused and lost in her persuasive methodology. Don't get me wrong, I love her Scarpetta novels and they are why I decided to pick up this book and read it.

Cornwell does a lot of profiling of Sickert as a psychopath, despite conveying in her own Scarpetta novels the inexact,dangerous tendency to rely too much on profiling. Murder is a serious accusation so every type of evidence known to the human race should come to the table to support a conviction. This book is riddled with subjectivity, as instead of starting with an open mind and an unbiased scientific hypothesis, she takes the opposite tact and sets out to prove what she already believes is the truth, focusing on evidence to support what she believes. Face it, we'll never know what was left out that is contrary to her belief unless we spend millions for our own investigation. That doesn't sound like a safe approach to solving murders. Makes intriguing theory but she doesn't put forth this work as a theory. She sells it as 100% "case closed".

I would not want her suspecting me of a crime based on the little bit of evidence in this book. I wish she had not claimed it to be case closed. The book does not merit that degree of confidence. Having said all that, I am still a fan of her Scarpetta novels, still reading them, but I have very mixed feelings about this book. I believe a lot of artistic license was used.

I am not an expert on all things Ripper; however, I have read a bit and read enough to realize that all of Cornwell's "evidence" could have been presented in less than 100 pages and that even that could have been honed down substantially if one removed her obscene conjecture and assumptions. It is poorly written jumping around from one inane subject to the next; Cornwell focuses on obscure and inapplicable details and then glosses over what most would consider extremely valid evidence. She vainly discredits any opposing views or expert evidence and plods through heaping circumstantial evidence on even weaker circumstantial evidence. I disagree thoroughly with her findings not because I am predisposed to any particular theory but because her theory is shamefully incomplete and her arrogance in presenting it is embarrassing. Along with this the book is simply unreadable, poorly edited, and frustrating. The only positive thing I can find about the book is it has sparked an interest in Walter Sickert's work and life. If one is looking for a Ripper book worth reading that is wonderfully written, researched, and truly objective: The Complete History of Jack the Ripper by Sugden is strongly recommended.

Basically, she thinks Sickert is Jack the Ripper but she can't prove it. This theory could have been stated in 50 pages or less. Ms. Cornwell chose to extend that to 350 pages by makes a lot of assumptions and conjectures, and repeating herself multiple times. At times it is interesting. At times she goes so far off the farm, it becomes ridiculous. I had a hard time getting through this book and would not recommend it. I feel like, if Sickert were alive, she would be sued for libel.

Portrait of a Killer

Patricia Cornwell wrote a series of crime novels featuring “Dr. Kay Scarpetta”. She helped to establish the Virginia Institute of Forensic Science and Medicine, and is its Chairman of the Board. The serial killer known as “Jack the Ripper” was never caught. Many have created solutions. Cornwell studied his case and came up with her solution: world-famous Walter Sickert. Cornwell analyzed Sickert’s paintings. Did anyone else ever arrive at the same conclusion, ever? Why didn’t any of his contemporaries become suspicious of Walter? Did he have alibis for any ot the murders? Most of all, why did he stop? Other serial murderers continues their killings until they were caught. So it could not have been Walter.

This is a readable book that covers that era. There are other books on this subject. Cornwell has an answer as to why the handwriting of Walter does not match that of “Jack” (p.166)! The matching watermark on the letters is interesting, but how widespread was the sale of this product (p.167)? I think this book would have been better with an opposing viewpoint to question some of her claims. Or her efforts would have been better spent on a more recent mystery. “Who Killed Kennedy” is a title and topic of many other books.

Portrait of a Killer

Patricia Cornwell wrote a series of crime novels featuring “Dr. Kay Scarpetta”. She helped to establish the Virginia Institute of Forensic Science and Medicine, and is its Chairman of the Board. The serial killer known as “Jack the Ripper” was never caught. Many have created solutions. Cornwell studied his case and came up with her solution: world-famous Walter Sickert. Cornwell analyzed Sickert’s paintings. Did anyone else ever arrive at the same conclusion, ever? Why didn’t any of his contemporaries become suspicious of Walter? Did he have alibis for any ot the murders? Most of all, why did he stop? Other serial murderers continues their killings until they were caught. So it could not have been Walter.

This is a readable book that covers that era. There are other books on this subject. Cornwell has an answer as to why the handwriting of Walter does not match that of “Jack” (p.166)! The matching watermark on the letters is interesting, but how widespread was the sale of this product (p.167)? I think this book would have been better with an opposing viewpoint to question some of her claims. Or her efforts would have been better spent on a more recent mystery. “Who Killed Kennedy” is a title and topic of many other books.

Patricia Cornwells attempt at closing the case of Jack the Ripper intrigued me at first.
Her main suspect Walter Sickert was already cited by a few other ripperologists as a potentially good candidate for being the real Jack the ripper. In fact there are certain characteristics and habits and possible clues that could tie Sickert in with the behavioral patterns of Jack the Ripper.

Unfortunately Cornwell does not offer any solid evidence that actually can convince us that Sickert was or could well have actually been the Ripper.
Her DNA testing of Sickerts letters with those of JTRs proves inconclusve.
Also disturbing is Cornwells narrative which firmly takes the line that Sickert was a serial killer and an insane woman hater, anyone can make accusations but without providing solid facts to demonstrate to the reader and prove that he actually was, the accusation comes across as being absurd.

Nowhere in her book though can she cite solid sources of evidence to prove her point.

I believe this book was somewhat rushed, the research was in some cases very interesting however too many assumptions were made and virtually no actual proof was presented by cornwell that would have cemented her claims as fact.

Overall we are left with a rushed work...perhaps if Cornwell was willng to invest a few more years and if she had recruited the expertise of a few more specialists in crimnology, handwriting analysis as well as historians and DNA experts we may have had a work which would have been more logically laid out with supporting evidence.

If one re reads the book a few times one can start to actually get the sense that Cornwell being a prolific writer of crime novels has somewhat taken liberties and made up a lot of the missing pieces to support her aleady weak argument.

Unfortunately Cornwells work can only be considered in its present form as a deliberate attempt at character assassination, i cannot recommend this work as a good JTR casebook, because t is devoid of any supporting evidence.

Sickert may have been the JTR of old, however this book does not deliver the evidence we need to satisfy that the case is closed...fa from it.

In PORTRAIT OF A KILLER: JACK THE RIPPER - CASE CLOSED, crime novelist Patricia Cornwell tackles the true crime genre with mixed results. With the help of modern-day forensics, she attempts to prove that Walter Sickert (1860-1942), an English Impressionist painter, was in fact Jack the Ripper. She lays out an intriguing, albeit largely circumstantial, case. However, one could hardly say that she's managed to do what so many before her have not - that is, close the case.

To her credit, Cornwell presents the reader with a volume of evidence that points to Sickert as a viable suspect in the Ripper crimes. She draws on paper, watermark, handwriting, and mitochondrial DNA analysis, and also delves deep into Sickert's personality, expounding upon his childhood traumas and adult eccentricities in great detail.

Of particular interest is a childhood condition that may have caused damage to Sickert's penis, perhaps to the point that he was impotent as an adult. Clearly, Sickert endured lengthy hospital stays and several surgeries as a young boy. Unfortunately, hospital records kept during this time were spotty, so it's impossible to tell whether Sickert did in fact suffer from a fistula on his penis - or if the fistula was instead located on his anus (as the more commonly accepted theory goes).

Certainly, it's possible that the results of a penile fistula suffered in the days before modern medicine - i.e., the inability to have sex `normally,' and/or the grotesque appearance of one's genitalia - could cause a man to hate that which he cannot have, that is, women. Although Cornwell assumes that Sickert did in fact have a fistula on his penis as a boy, and was disfigured by the resulting surgery, she has no concrete evidence to support her claim. Since this is a significant part of her argument - after all, she presents it as Sickert's primary motive for the killings - it tends to weaken the rest of her case, which she presents in pieces as she describes the Whitechapel murders.

The "penile or anal fistula mystery" is illustrative of what follows. Cornwell has certainly done her research; yet, when all her digging fails to turn up any conclusive evidence, she shows herself more than willing to take huge leaps of faith. What results is a case built almost entirely on circumstantial evidence. It makes for an interesting read, but to call the case closed is preemptive at best (and, quite frankly, Cornwell comes off much worse, what with the smug, know-it-all tone she takes, particularly throughout the first third of the book).

Another major point of contention is that Cornwell explicitly refuses to consider any suspects other than Sickert. She briefly dismisses John Druitt, who committed suicide shortly after Mary Kelly was murdered, but Druitt is literally the only other suspect that Cornwell mentions by name. In fact, she explicitly states that it's not her place to clear other suspects in PORTRAIT OF A KILLER, which strikes me as rather disingenuous (especially when her case against Sickert is so flimsy!). Throughout the book, Cornwell seems so eager ("overeager" is putting it mildly) to implicate Sickert - continually referring to him as "Jack the Ripper," a "killer" and "psychopath," etc. - that one has to wonder whether her inexplicable hatred of Sickert clouded her judgment. Or perhaps mere stubbornness is to blame? It seems that, once Cornwell had her sights set on Sickert, on went the blinders, rendering the author incapable of registering any information that contradicted her theory that "Sickert did it!"

Other reviewers have complained that the book is disjointed. While Cornwell does jump back and forth in time, it didn't bother me. Rather, I thought it was a nice narrative technique. I do agree, though, that the book ended abruptly. One moment, Cornwell is describing how Sickert mistreated his second wife; the next, the poor woman is dead and buried, and so is the book. I'm still puzzled why the discussion ended with the wife's death, and not Sickert's, particularly when Sickert's murderous tendencies (allegedly) continued.

Finally, a note on the various formats. I first listened to PORTRAIT OF A KILLER as an audiobook on CD. Kate Burton did an excellent job of narrating, assuming both elite and Cockney English accents with ease. The play-like quality of the book also helps to offset the abrupt switches in place and time. The unabridged version, which I borrowed from my local library, ran eleven discs (the current version available on the store, which is listed at five discs, seems awfully short - even for an abridged book).

Not long after finishing the audio book, I ran across the hardcover edition at a used book sale and snatched it up. It has a number of pictures, including a few autopsy photos, Sickert family portraits, and snapshots of Sickert's artwork and handwriting, side-by-side with that contained in some of the Ripper letters. After listening to Cornwell's comparisons of Sickert's and the Ripper's (or the Ripper imposter's) handwriting and scribbles, it was interesting to compare them for myself, firsthand. Suffice it to say, I was less impressed with the similarities between the two men's handiwork than was Cornwell.

In summary: Serious Ripperologists will most likely hate this book. Very little of Cornwell's evidence is bulletproof, and her arrogance can be off-putting (doubly so to those who have been studying Jack the Ripper for years). Even so, I found the book entertaining and thought-provoking. Cornwell's description of 1800s England and early police work, along with comparisons of modern and centuries-old forensic techniques, makes PORTRAIT OF A KILLER worth a read alone. We'll probably never know who killed Nichols, Chapman, Stride, Eddowes, Kelly, and possibly others - or if they were even murdered by the same person - but it's "fun" to wonder. Cornwell's theory, at the very least, makes for an engaging exercise in "what if?"

One star for the thorough research, another for the author's captivating writing style, and a third for sheer entertainment value.

The trouble with this book is that half way through everything seems resolved. Cornwell does a fine job of lining up the facts and does indeed make a convincing enough argument (evidence is mostly circumstantial) for whom the tittle of Jack the Ripper really belonged to however after awhile it looses it's appeal and quickly becomes redundant. Once we figure out that we're in on the whole thing it quickly becomes a flavorless read.

There are some high points in here however, namely the little tidbits and facts that one picks up on almost any reading of a historical investigation book. There were a few hilarious scenes in the book where she goes out and buys a standard police issue lantern and takes a walk down a dark London alley in order to recreate the conditions in which police officers at the time would have had to work under while investigating the case. Much to her dismay she finds out that instead of the large, far reaching beam that illuminates the skullduggery of the common criminal in the night time she gets a small glow bug type illumination that works so poorly she quickly has to switch to an electric torch in order not to trip over herself and break her neck.

Over all this was a good read but it still is in need of some editing. Personal dramas and all the extra information after she makes her final argument over the identity of the killer should have been kept to a minimum or cut all together.

I have never read any of Patricia Cornwell's mystery books, but if they are as narratively compelling as Portrait of a Killer, they must surely be page-turners. She knows how to characterize a psychopath; how to illustrate a depraved and violent mind. But I'm not convinced that Walter Sickert, 19th century artists and minor celebrity, was such a mind, or that if he was, he was the infamous Jack the Ripper.
Cornwell is clearly meticulous in her research, but here she seems to have been meticulous with a purpose. She concluded that Sickert was the Ripper, and gathered the evidence that supported her theory, giving minimal attention to the evidence that opposes it. Her argument would have been more convincing had she elaborated on how she determined Sickert was the Ripper; what were the steps that lead her to that conclusion? As presented, her epiphany seems like a bolt from the blue.

Cornwell's main pieces of evidence raise many interesting questions about Sickert. He had a deformity due to botched surgery that made him impotent, his artwork is largely misogynistic, many of the Ripper letters were written with artists' tools. All of these things indicate that he may have been a repressed and violent man, but not that he was Jack the Ripper. But Cornwell's case with these points makes fascinating reading. Her more tangible, physical proof is less fascinating. The only point in the book where my eyes began to cross was her descriptions of different watermarks in different 19th century stationary that Sickert and others used. More interestingly, several investigators are trying to get DNA evidence from the envelopes and stamps on the Ripper letters, but again, the most this could prove would be that Sickert (and many other pranksters) liked to bait the police.

Still, Cornwell presents a richly detailed portrayal of a unique and disturbing individual. I had never heard of Sickert before reading Portrait, and I can see how he and his artwork would capture the imagination. Sickert, from Cornwell's research, seems to have been a dark and complicated man. And the London of his time was undeniably a dark and complicated place. It was an intriguing read, and I enjoyed hearing Cornwell's argument although I remain unconvinced.

After spending millions of dollars of her own money, Cornwell claims to have solve the case (and bring some justice?). I'm not sure about the justice part. I have read Cornwell before and I'm not the biggest fan. This book is an interesting mess: it has both good points and bad points.

First, I'll cover the good points. The book does a great job of depicting the lives of the "unfortunates," the prostitutes of the East End of London. She describes the milieu, the hopelessness, the rampant disease, and the unsanitary conditions. She also explains how Jack the Ripper gets away with it. The police force did not have the resources to track him down. She also describes how current techniques could have caught him. She gives a multitude of arguments for Sickert being the murderer. She also addresses, at least partially, most of the objections to Sickert being the Ripper.

The bad points are legion. One is that the book really drags in certain sections. She also lists other possible murders that could have been done by Jack the Ripper. This drags. She also seems to be pressing. She seems to pick Sickert at a Scotland Yard detective's recommendation and then seems to twist the circumstantial evidence to fit. Since this case is very old, there is no way we can disprove her suppositions. She also makes several insinuations and then writes, we cannot know for sure because of the lack of evidence. Why bring it up? She pretty much thinks every anonymous crank letter is from Jack the Ripper. I agree it seems like Sickert did write some of them, but it really doesn't prove anything. He appears to have been a very strange fellow. She also makes a big point that his paintings seem to depict some of the murdered women. However, interpreting paintings is a very subjective skill and I don't give it much weight.

I've read a few of the reviews and they misunderstand how Cornwell used the DNA evidence. She does not use it to prove Sickert is the Ripper, she uses it to disprove some of the other suspects. The DNA evidence does not disprove Sickert.

I think Sickert could be a suspect. I agree with her that the evidence for him being in France for some of the murders doesn't seem convincing. Sickert seems to be very strange, very morbid and scary man. However, Cornwell does not prove her case.

Patricia Cornwell did a great job researching this project. As one reads this book, you can see and feel all of the research that she did.

As you continue to read the book, you quickly feel that this is not just a research project for her. It has become an obsession.

She makes an interesting case against the British artist, Walter Sickert. Some of it is convincing. In fact, I believe that he is the most credible suspect to be Jack the Ripper. Cornwell got her hands on a lot of letters and paintings from the Ripper/Sickert. The problem is, she has no conclusive evidence that Sickert was the Ripper.

If she presented this case to a Grand Jury or a Preliminary Hearing, I doubt it would ever see a trial. She confesses that without Sickert DNA, we'll probably never know for sure if Sickert was the Ripper, as he conveniently had himself cremated upon his death.

The part of this book that disturbs me the most is how she arrogantly labels her book: Jack the Ripper Case Closed. Really? According to whom? First, there is lack of evidence and nothing conclusive. All she has are theories and small pieces of circumstantial evidence. And many of those, she confesses, "We don't have evidence that Sickert was there. But we don't have evidence that Sickert wasn't either." And?!? If this is the best she can do, then she's a long way off from PROVING anything! As a former medical examiner who has years of experience of working within the law, I feel the Cornwell should know better.

She has no qualms whatsoever about literally calling Sickert, the Ripper. She may be right. That is not what I'm disputing. She hasn't the facts to back it up.

Personally, I feel there is a great chance that Sickert was, in fact, the Ripper. A man of high standing, incredible intelligence, and a twisted mind to boot, seems to answer a lot of unanswered questions about why the Ripper was never caught. Cornwell's theory is that he simply outsmarted them. It's a good theory. A really good one. But again, not enough evidence to support it.

This is a compelling read, and it wasn't that I didn't enjoy it. I found it very interesting as she gives insight to the times, places, and people of the time period. If Cornwell had just come out and said that she SUSPECTS that Sickert was the Ripper and allowed the reader to come to his/her own conclusions, then this would be a credible book. But, she oversteps her bounds and removes much of that credibility from her work.

Unfortunately, she's done a better job of damaging her reputation than she has in putting Walter Sickert under the spotlight. If Sickert was the Ripper, then he's done it again...outsmarted Patricia Cornwell 114 years later.

Patricia Cornwell makes some interesting observations and has definately convinced me that Walter Sickert was a strange and morbid man who most probably had a fascination with Jack the Ripper (JTR). From the evidence in the book it even seems likely that he may have written some of the Ripper letters (most/many of which are presumed hoaxes). However, in no way did she convince me that she has solid proof that he actually was JTR.

While the book will likely hold your interest, it will ultimitely make you feel you've been duped if you expect to find any REAL and COMPELLING evidence of Cornwell's claim that Walter Sickert was the famed serial killer. In her zeal to prove her case, she employs many flawed arguments and leaps of logic. Since many of these have been documented here by other posters, I won't add my own recitation of them, but I am confident discerning readers won't get far without spotting them. While the lack of a consistent chronological order cited by some didn't bother me too much, the book's ending seems rather strange and abrupt. As best I can tell, it serves no other purpose than to leave a final taste in the reader's mouth that Walter Sickert was a liar and not a particularly good human being. From this---I can only suppose---the reader is expected to draw the "obvious" conclusion that he was JTR.

I really can't recommend this book to purchase nor even heartily recommend it as something worth the time and effort to read. However, if you wish to do so anyway I recommend you save the money and check it out at the library.

Patricia Cornwell is a much better author than "Portrait of a Killer" would lead one to believe.

It's hard to imagine that anyone without pure discipline could finish this book in the first place, much less get through the first 500 pages.

Think what you will about mass literary writers. Many put their brilliance to good use in an attempt to do exactly what they do -- tell an entertaining story. Some choose to fill pages with drivel in an effort to prove a point. And, that's what it appears Cornwell is up to with this offering.

Anyone with an average IQ will be well aware that Cornwell believes Sickert is Jack the Ripper about 200 pages into the work. And, she should have cut off her argument at about the 300-page mark.

Facts, insinuations and outright grasping at thin air to make a connection drag out ad nauseum what would otherwise be an intriguing, detailed and convincing account.

After a point, it almost feels like Cornwell is trying to convince herself.

Bottom line: Overstated. But a must read for anyone utterly fascinated by the Jack the Ripper mythos.

I agree with all those who said Cornwell picked her man and then looked for any evidence she could find that supported her case. I hate to be cynical, but this is no different than what Prosecutors and police do in the United States on a regular basis. The suspect is identified and then the evidence is gathered to convict.
Cornwell's website contains a recent update in which her expert on papers and his company have concluded that two Ripper letters and two Sickert letters are conclusively from the same 24-count package of paper (the cut ends match up with one another microscopically). So I think we can conclude Sickert wrote many Ripper letters. The question is whether there is enough in these letters that suggests they could only have been written by the killer.
On that score, I'm not entirely convinced. Did Sickert have a penile anomaly? He was married three times and fathered no children. He is not known to have fathered any children (Joseph Sickert's claims are a joke). He did not contest Ellen's adultery claim in her divorce papers, but back then "irreconcilable differences" was not a valid option for a woman to seek a divorce. He told someone later he was happy to be free of Ellen. Why contest it, then? He had nothing to lose.
Someone earlier claimed there are several sources "proving" Sickert was in France when the murders took place. This is not true. While there are no other "London" sketches dated after August 4, there is nothing until September 6 to indicate he was in France. That is a letter by his mother. He could easily have arrived on September 1 (one day after one of the murders) and left after his alibi was established (September 6 or 7) in time for the Sept. 8 murder. There is another letter by his friend Blanche that says Sickert visited Blanche's father on September 16, but no murders were committed between September 9 and September 29. While his wife Ellen claimed he was in France, he frequently disappeared on her for weeks at a time without stating where he was going. It would be odd for him to go to France at that time, according to Cornwell, when all his friends would have left. It's true he titled a painting of a Dieppe butcher shop "The October Sun", but that's pretty meaningless if he is the killer, since he titled it himself. There's nothing inherent in the painting that proves it was painted in October.
I think many of those dismissing this book are doing what Cornwell did--they decided to dismiss it even before reading it and are looking for 'evidence' to support their viewpoint.
I think this book, taken in conjunction with Fellows' book on the same topic, is compelling although not 100 percent conclusive. I think the amount of time and expert analysis spent on the case by Cornwell goes further than any other treatise on the subject.
DO we discount the initial police work done in the 1800's? I think you have to, given the tremendous advances in psychology, criminal science, and medical science. There was simply so much that wasn't known. These people still believed masturbation would make you go blind and that you could tell by someone's physical characteristics what kind of 'criminal' they were. They did the best they could under the circumstances, but they lacked the education, training, and science available today. (And let's face it, even today's police/prosecutors make mistakes--look at the Central Park jogger case.)
My main compliants about the book are that it's too expository. There's a lot of fanciful imaginings of what Sickert might or might not have done (like going to see John Merrick at a freak show) that are not relevant to the case. A book like this should be presented like a scholarly legal argument, and it is not. There is no timeline (I can't believe there's no timeline!) and all the material about Cornwell's personal interest or issues with doing this book would be better contained in a preface.
I think if the book were more concise and the facts presented in a more compact fashion, the book would have had more success in making her case.
One of the problems with using Sickerts' paintings against him is that in those times, inquests were open and the media reported on the bodies. He would have had easy access to the bodies, and indeed not everyone who attended those inquests or followed the case was Jack the Ripper. Look at how many people watched the OJ trial. A fascination with the morbid (which some of us have or wouldn't have bought this book) does not prove a psychopath.
I would have liked to see a more fair-minded presentation that included exculpatory evidence as well and credited the reader with the intelligence to reach a conclusion.

What Ms. Cornwell achieves in this book is a thorough overview of these horrid killings, and while at it does an admirable job of de-mythologizing any macabre "glamour" that has ever been erroneously attached to these atrocities. What she doesn't achieve is the conclusive "case closed" claims made either by her or on her behalf by this book's supporters. I don't know if a Victorian artist named Walter Sickert was the fiendish murderer responsible for the slayings of a handful of life's unfortunates in 1888, but I suspect he was not. (And if not has Cornwell then published one of the most brutal character assassinations in history?) As for the serial killer at the heart of this work, theories of this demented individual's identity have ranged from a Liverpool cotton importer (in a now-discredited 1990's book) to the Duke of Clarence, to a cabal of Freemasons, to an anti-Jewish conspirator. The fact is we'll probably never know who the self-dubbed "Ripper" was. After 118 years, does it matter? As an exercise in sated curiosity, it would be nice to finally close this case, but beyond that, it's merely an exercise in indulgence. Cornwell is a good writer and she can intentionally darken anyone's soul with her plots and revelations. This is, as I mentioned, a sound delving into the time and setting of the 1888 Whitechapel murders, and of the act of homicide itself. Beyond that, I think others have already gone a long way toward refuting Cornwell's idealistic claims of insight into Jack the Ripper's identity. Read this for the facts, not the speculation.

I'm going to avoid certain points other reviewers have covered, such as whether her case for Sickert as the Ripper is convincing. I didn't think so, though I was interested in her evidence regarding the great number of letters received, particularly that some were painted. My point is her rather incredible contempt for Victorians and other historical persons, whether they were the police, the victims, the press, or random people.

I first read this book in 2005, and initially, I thought my reaction was based on irritation. I've never cared for Cornwell's primary heroine, Kay Scarpetta, who strikes me as arrogant, overbearing, and essentially snobbish, surrounding herself with people who are sick, neurotic, deranged, or otherwise unwell. The mysteries are competent enough, so I read them, but Scarpetta herself doesn't engage or interest me. My interest in the Ripper goes back to high school, and, while I don't consider myself an expert, I do read about the Ripper with interest, and I think I'm reasonably well-informed about the crimes.

Whenever someone proclaims that they have "solved" the Ripper murders, I am somewhere between cringing and eager - I buy the book, and brace myself for embarassment; all too often, the bracing is needed.

Cornwell does a terrible job of laying out her case. She jumbles together letters (frequently undated, and certainly lacking good citations), incidents (again, lacking citation - how do I find these cases, ma'am?), speculation about the Ripper's actions or motives, and rants (they cannot be called anything else) about Walter Sickert's life and activities. Then Cornwell gives her conclusion; a reader unacquainted with the Ripper might end up bowled over by her forceful statements and restatements of her premise.

Worse, Cornwell imagines herself as a compassionate and enlightened, even objective recorder and observer. Her relation of the East End pictures the people living there not as individuals, but as distinctly depressing statistics, and relates (as if it were all there was to the people of the era) an overwhelming sense of some mass of dirty, alcohol-impaired, brutish mass. Certainly, the East End of London, in the 1880's, was not a happy place, but not every resident was illiterate, drunk, ignorant, dirty and hopeless. Most of the witnesses at the inquests of the Ripper's victims are not well-off, certainly, but most of them are working, at least reasonably intelligent, and not entirely unobservant.

Further, Cornwell cannot make up her mind. First, she disparages the British medical establishment and its autopsy reports and observations; next, she relies upon a newspaper account of an inquest (or at least never makes a clear citation of an actual medical report) to say that a boy murdered in Bradford had his heart "plucked" out, rather than cut. She may have it one way or the other. She may not have it both.

To make matters worse, Patricia Cornwell displays a truly appaling ignorance of some historical matters; what trial by ordeal consisted of; the legality of swimming a suspect; how much was understood about rigor mortis by the 1880's (um, I hate to break it to her, but some of the classic relations of the stages of rigor were written up almost fifty years before - and I'm just a reader, not someone making my living writing about murder and its investigation); the sociology of Britain in this era. On none of these subjects do I claim expertise; on the other hand, I'm reasonably well-read, and Cornwell is flat-out wrong, and superficial in her dismissal of the actual facts.

Worst, from my point of view, is that Cornwell manages to get things wrong about the actual Ripper cases. For instance, in Elizabeth Stride's murder, she never once cites Shwartze's evidence. She doesn't explain why she doesn't, she simply acts as if he never existed. Cornwell mis-spells two victims' names - Martha Tabram is listed as Tabran (not a favored spelling (though possible), and Catherine Eddowes is consistently referred to as Eddows (much to my irritation). Charles Warren comes in for undeserved condemnation, particularly regarding bloodhounds (never mind that he never thought hounds would do any good, and in fact participated in a test to prove it), for no good reason I can see, but Robert Anderson is never mentioned, and Swanson is cited only a couple times.

So far as I can tell, Cornwell began this book convinced of the guilt of one, particular person, and did not bother to acquire more than a casual acquaintance with the rest of the case, or the era, which she wrote about.

The case is far from closed (no, I have no candidate for the Ripper), and Cornwell, while her evidence regarding the many letters possibly written by Sickert is interesting and possibly valuable, needs to get over her sense of superiority, and take a more honest, complete look at the case.

Patricia Cornwell is best known for her series of books focused on Kay Scarpetta, a tough lady medical examiner who solves crimes. For a while now, I've been feeling that these books were becoming a bit dull and extremely formulaic, so when her non-fiction book, Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper, Case Closed came out, I jumped at the chance to read something that wasn't Scarpetta-focused. It turned out to be an intriguing look at the author as well as a thorough description of London and the Ripper murders. Cornwell turned a spur-of-the-moment invitation to Scotland Yard one day into an obsession over who Jack the Ripper was-even spending much of her own money on forensic tests in order to further her theories, and buying some letters and other Ripper memorabilia, including around thirty paintings done by the man she thinks was Jack the Ripper.

When reading the book, I got an overwhelming tone of superiority from Cornwell. It's almost as if she's smugly telling the reader that there is no room for doubt in her opinion of who committed the murders, even though her evidence is mainly circumstantial and based upon conjecture as to the character of William Sickert, her suspect. It is Cornwell's theory that Sickert, a semi-famous painter and actor of the time, was so upset over the marriage of his mentor James Whistler to a woman that Sickert himself was entranced with that he went on to kill five prostitutes over a few months in 1888, and coined himself "Jack the Ripper" in letters to the police.
There is nothing wrong with Cornwell's theory, but the evidence she presents is hardly conclusive that the man was, in fact, the killer. She does manage to prove, to me anyway, that Sickert was probably the author of several of the Ripper letters to the police that included sketches, but it doesn't necessarily follow that he killed the women-- only that he liked to mess with Scotland Yard along with other citizens that wrote similar letters. Sickert also painted quite a few disturbing paintings of women being killed, as well as painting a picture entitled Jack the Ripper's Bedroom, all of which Cornwell uses to profile him as a highly disturbed man.
What I found just as interesting as the subject of the book was the descriptions of London's East End and it's people at the time of the murders. None of the information would probably be new to an avid Anglophile, but to an amateur like me it was a detailed glimpse into the poverty and social issues of the time, giving glimpses at everything from the creation of Scotland Yard to the rampant alcoholism present in the lower classes.
One thing that didn't change from Cornwell's Scarpetta novels to this book was her reliance on detailed descriptions of forensic science. I did skim through several pages on types of DNA testing, but found the descriptions of arterial blood spatter patterns less boring, as well the detailing of what type of person can be considered a psychopath, and the different ways to preserve human organs. At the very least, this book will save me having to watch countless episodes of CSI for the same forensic voyeuristic feeling.
There is also something to say for not wanting to know the identity of the killer. Somehow, knowing all the gruesome crimes have not been solved or explained makes the story even more thrilling. The true stories of Jack the Ripper have achieved an almost mythic status, prompting movies, comics and stories around the campfire. Some part of me thinks that approaching something akin to a legend with science and facts takes away from it's cultural impact and leaves the world a bit less interesting.

The tendency, of course, when trying to prove any theory is to talk endlessly about the circumstances that prove your case -- ignoring the ones that don't.
Although there are exceptions, the majority of the time it does not appear to me that Cornwell is doing this.
Instead, it seems that she tries to cover all bases by comparing and constrasting evidence and theories.
Conwell appears truly passionate about discovering the Ripper secrets as well as sustaining her reputation.
I believe that she would have insisted the project be abandoned -- rather than slyly salvaged -- had she found evidence that caused her case to fall.
Theories others have proposed regarding the Ripper are discussed and, many times, shown to be false by constrasting evidence she has found.
Other theories seem validly disproven based on her personal conclusions.
In my opinion she does not so much drive a "look I solved it" idea down your throat -- but instead passionately supports her theories with bits of fact, new evidence and well-thought out theories.
It seems clear that if this evidence had been presented to London Police in the Ripper's time -- Sickert would have been arrested and tried for many, if not all, of the murders.
In addition to all the Ripper evidence and theories provided, Conwell paints a thorough and precise picture of London during the Ripper era. Through this information she puts the reader at at the scene of the crimes, and examines how people lived, the political structure, and medical conditions that affected the entire scheme of the Ripper investigation.
Her theories, forensic knowledge, and storytelling techique all fuse together wonderfully to make a compelling read.

It would be unfair to describe Ms Cornwell's Jack the Ripper theory as being the most ridiculous to date. In Ripper & the Royals by Melvin Fairclough, it is claimed that the Ripper murders were committed to cover up the marriage of Prince Albert Victor, grandson of Queen Victoria, to a catholic commoner. This notion, which also forms the premise of the movie 'From Hell' starring Johnny Depp, is, in my estimation, the stupidest 'solution' suggested so far, but Patricia Cornwalls effort in this book runs a very close second.

The title of the book informs us unequivocally (and, some might say rather arrogantly) that the Jack the Ripper case is now closed and the inference is quite clear that Ms Cornwell is the lone sleuth who investigated all the evidence and was thus led to the ultimate conclusion that Walter Sickert was the murderer. Unfortunately, notwithstanding all the media hype following the publication of the book that suggested that Ms Cornwell's theory was ground-breaking, the fact remains that Walter Sickert has already been offered up as a suspect in Sickert and the Ripper Crimes by Jean Overton Fuller. Clearly, this is a case where Ms Cornwell has become aware of a theory, become enamoured with it, and then made the all too common error of stretching and straining the facts in order to fit with her preconceptions rather than objectively analyizing the evidence to see what conclusions may be drawn. Several other reviewers have discussed the errors and weaknesses of her 'investigation', such as the feeble nature of the DNA evidence and her questionable assumptions concerning the provenance of the Ripper letters. I won't reiterate those arguments here, but I would note that anyone with more than a passing knowledge of the Ripper murders won't have to read very far into the book to have serious doubts about it given Ms Cornwall's unquestioned assumptions about just who it the Ripper is supposed to have killed.

The actual number of Ripper victims is the subject of considerable disagreement, ranging from 3 to a dozen or more. Sir Melville Macnaughten, who became Chief Constable at Scotland Yard after the Ripper murders, left a memorandum in which he stated quite definitively that there 5, and *only* five, Ripper victims, naming them as:

Mary Ann (Polly) Nichols;
Annie Chapman;
Elizabth (Long Liz) Stride;
Catherine Eddowes; and,
Marie Jeanette Kelly.

These five women are often referred to as the 'canonical victims' because, for decades, Macnaughten's pronouncement was accepted more or less at face value. Book after book on the Ripper case has discussed the case on the assumption that all five women were murdered by the same hand and it is only in the last couple of decades or so that this assumption has been widely criticised. Many 'Ripperologists' now believe that Elizabeth Stride was not, in fact, a Ripper victim at all, and a smaller, but increasing number of theorists, including myself, also believe that Marie Jeannete Kelly was not killed by the same person who killed Nichols, Chapman or Eddowes. Ms Cornwell has clearly read enough to be familiar with the canonical five, but not enough to be familiar with the controversies as to their status as Ripper victims. Surely, in a proper, objective and full examination, one would expect this important aspect of the case to be addressed, or mentioned at the very least. Ms Cornwell, however, appears to have swallowed the canon whole without being aware of the significant objections to the conclusions. Even apart from all the investigating deficiencies noted by others, this glaring weakness in the book will immediately signal knowledgeable Ripper theorists that Ms Cornwell is signally less informed than she and her publishers would have us believe.

I could go on but I would like to close by offering advice to Ripper 'newbies' to steer clear of this book, at least until you have a few more reputable works under your belt. I gave the book two stars because I finished it and because I believe that it is a volume the hard-core Ripperologists will wish to have read and have in their collections. However, if you are new to the case and wish to get familiar with the facts, you might be wiser to stick to something a little more objective. Personally, I would recommend Jack the Ripper: The Complete Casebook by Donald Rumbelow. It is a well-balanced book that looks at the general facts of the case and also provides some very interesting background material.

C. John Thompson

Patricia Cornwell utilizes 300 pages or her new book to convince us of her belief that artist Walter Sickert was the infamous "Jack the Ripper." She is absolute in her conviction and has stated publicly that she is willing to "stake her career" on her findings. As a trained scientist and clinician, I would argue that Ms. Cornwell's findings are entirely unconvincing and that the majority of her conclusions are based on speculation.
Although she makes an admirable attempt to link DNA in correspondence written by Sickert with DNA in letters purportedly written by "the Ripper," the results are not conclusive or exclusionary. She is forced to give this evidence (which had it been conclusive would have been very strong) short shrift in her text and builds her case by speculating on Sickert's psychological make-up, his behavior, and his whereabouts. Indeed, the amount of guessing she engages in is so extravagant that I found myself putting the book down and laughing at times. Just a few examples:
1. Speculating that Sickert was deformed, sexually impotent and hated women (and murdered them)due to a fistula of his penis. The speculation of psychological problems related to a physical condition might be acceptable, if she had convincing evidence that the physical condition existed, which she does not.
2. That most of the letters purportedly written to the press and police by Jack the Ripper were legitimate AND written by Sickert. First, it is extremely unlikely that the Ripper cases, which received so much press at the time, would not result in a multitude of false letters and correspondence. To think otherwise is absurd. Second, the penmanship and literacy of the letters varies greatly. Cornwell argues that Sickert deliberately disguised his writing from letter to letter and feigned illiteracy in some letters, but not in others. However, she never provides a believable justification as to why. Third, the letters are also postmarked from all over the country and she argues that Sickert went on extravagant journeys in order to postmark the letters from different locales, but again fails to convince as to the motive for doing so.
In my opinion, were Ms. Cornwell's findings and arguments submitted to a peer-reviewed journal they would be soundly rejected. Or, to use her own analogy, were they presented in a court of law, the defendant would be acquitted. She appears to have formed an opinion and then presented the evidence to support that opinion, ignoring or failing to address the blatant leaps of faith she makes in the process.
I had no knowledge of Walter Sickert prior to reading this book and, therefore, no pre-conceived notions one way or the other. Is it possible that he was Jack the Ripper? Certainly. But does the evidence convince me of it? Absolutely not. In fact, I would argue that Patricia Cornwell has done a disservice to the man and his surviving family members.

Fortunately you can not libel the dead otherwise the rest of Ms Cornwell's fortune would be spent in court. The first statement she makes is that Walter Sickert is Jack the Ripper, then she looks at tenuous connections which she then renders as certainties. DNA results are inconclusive and therefore proof her point, despite the fact that it is not even sure this is blood. I would love to meet the Scotland Yard detective who thinks the CPS would prosecute, they have to have a better than 51% chance of a conviction and this evidence does not give that level of admissible proof.
It is sad that someone of Patricia Cornwell's ability misuses her talent this way.
As a piece of fiction it's great as non fiction ...
Bought from the store.co.uk

Perhaps appropriately for a book about one of the original "disorganised serial killers", Portrait of a Killer is a horrible mess which seems to have been written in a moment of rage. Murders and other events are described out of chronological order for no clear reason. Pictures and letters that are supposed to support Cornwell's argument are described, but not shown. A sketch of a short broad-bladed knife from one `ripper' letter is not referred to in the text, and contradicts Cornwell's description of the knife she thinks the ripper used, nor does it resemble the knives in Sickert's sketches which Cornwell claims prove his guilt. I applaud her use of forensic techniques (at her own expense) to attempt to solve the mystery, and her exhaustive research of primary sources, but she doesn't explain why she went to so much effort to prove a case against Sickert to the exclusion of other suspects.
As in some of her novels, Cornwell depicts the serial killer as a brilliant supervillain, elusive as the Scarlet Pimpernel. Her cunningly disguised Ripper disappears from the scene of the crime with scarcely a trace and zooms around England and France, taunting the police by writing hundreds of letters in different hands and putting obscure clues into his paintings. She blames him for assorted deaths that bear little resemblance to the canonical Ripper murders simply because some `Ripper letters' were postmarked from the general area at a some time, yet claims elsewhere that while Sickert wrote many of the letters (i.e. those that seem to prove rather than disprove her case), he had associates post them for him to conceal his whereabouts. She uses "might not" and "possibly" so often that I soon lost count, and all she ultimately PROVES is that Sickert used the same brand of paper as the author of some Ripper letters, and that DNA from the envelope from one of the `Ripper letters' may match that from other letters written by Sickert's and that partial fingerprints on the envelope may be Sickert's. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that this letter or any of the 600+ others were written by the Ripper, and none of the Ripper's fingerprints or DNA has been recovered from the crime scenes.
Cornwell is not the first to accuse Sickert, who titled a painting of a room in his lodgings "Jack the Ripper's Bedroom" - but Cornwell neglects to mention that Sickert's landlady told him that the Ripper had lived there. Sickert was undeniably fascinated by the murders, and may have thought he knew who the Ripper was... but the same is true of many people, including Cornwell herself. A century from now, someone may look at her novels and, using the same reasoning, find them full of clues that `prove' that she committed many unsolved murders - but I doubt that would be accepted as evidence beyond reasonable doubt. And neither should this book.

Patricia Cornwell admitted that due to her controversial theory she would be ripped apart by all the Ripper experts who have been on this case for ages and had read everything on the Ripper, while she was someone with only a superficial knowledge of the Ripper case until she started her research. Even by the end of her research when she began to write her book, it can hardly be said that she had a thorough understanding of all the evidence and theories in the case. However, when she was examining the suspects, her subjective intuition told her that a highly unlikely and improbable suspect named Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper. The result was a book which is far from proving that Sickert was the Ripper, but it is a fascinating account, which nevertheless DOES prove certain things about Sickert and his knowledge of Jack the Ripper.
Here point-by-point is what I objectively believe Patricia Cornwell DID prove:
1) Sickert was obsessed with Jack the Ripper, to the point that some of his paintings are strongly influenced by this obsession.
2) Sickert might have sent one or more of the Ripper hoax letters to Scotland Yard
3) Sickert fits the psychological profile of the killer.
Scientifically speaking, this is all that this book proves about Walter Sickert. I believe Cornwell would have come up with much more convincing results if she had put all that time and money into investigating a much more promising suspect, like Francis Tumbelty. Among the amazing articles of evidence agianst him are the fact that he was known to have a collection of bottled uteruses (an organ which was removed from the Ripper victims), he was known to commonly frequent the East End slums, he had a violent hatred of women, especially "fallen women", he was known to have murdered at least once as a quack doctor, he committed obscenity offences on the days of the week of each Ripper murder, and most telling of all, when the nuns who looked after him went through his personal belongings after his death, they found all the things you would expect a fancy gentleman would own--gold pocket watch, all kinds of expensive jewelry, and then last on the list, two cheap immitation gold rings IDENTICAL TO THE TWO THAT WERE STOLEN FROM VICTIM ANNIE CHAPMAN'S FINGERS.
David Rehak
author of "A Young Girl's Crimes"

"Portrait of a Killer" purports to have finally uncovered the identity of the enigmatic Jack the Ripper. Sure enough, Patricia Cornwell had me convinced that Walter Sickert, a contemporary painter, was indeed the Ripper. . . . at least while I was reading the book. Cornwell's book reads more like a thriller than a legitimate investigate. For being a page turner, I give this book 4 stars. Cornwell is very compelling in her argument, & I truly did believe that Sickert was the Ripper while I was reading this book.

The problem is that all of her evidence if circumstantial. Taken together, the evidence (if fact) does make Sickert look like an ideal candidate for the Ripper. Unfortunately, there are several other candidates for the Ripper who are just as compelling. Cornwell does not mention these, so Sickert seems like a foregone conclusion. I've done a fair bit of reading on Jack the Ripper, & I just don't believe that Cornwell has finally unearthed his identity. I don't think anyone ever will.

I remember studying Jack The Ripper in high school, and I never took much of an interest in the case. To be frank, the only reason the case endured for so long is because of the brutality of the killings, and the fact that the killer was never caught. It seems that when less is known, the more people are interested. This book is perhaps the most detailed account I have read so far, and definitely the one with the most opinionated narrative.
Patricia Cromwell has dedicated much of her time to researching the Jack The Ripper killings, and has drawn her conclusions in this book. She makes some interesting points, like the DNA sample from an envelope, as well as attempting to debunk popular beliefs (like the copycat ripper letters). But being a natural skeptic, I am not wholly convinced of her findings. She presents a lot of theories, a few conincidences, and a big conspiracy reaching to top levels of government. I won't spoil it, but it makes for some interesting brain candy. However, much of her research reveals nothing that has not been said before. A BBC documentary made in the early 80's drew similar conclusions. Don't expect any revelations while reading "Portrait of a Killer".
Patricia Cromwell is a good author, and I have enjoyed her other writings. "Portrait of a Killer" is well written, easy to follow, and engaging. But it didn't set my mind on fire like I hoped it would. While it is Cromwell's opinion and research that is the basis for the book, and it has sold well based on hype alone, she has not really "solved" the case. Good mainly for a casual read.

Patricia Cornwell may be a wonderful mystery writer (I've never read her, so I wouldn't know), but she should stick to what she knows - writing fiction. I have done extensive studies on Jack the Ripper and other serial killers and while her "evidence" is quite intriguing, it is fallible.
She believes that she has solved this great mystery as have other, more acclaimed Ripperologists. However, where she errs greatly is by saying that she is 100% absolutely positive and there is no margin for error. Her theory may be correct, but it will only be added to the other Jack the Ripper as a theory.
Cornwell has received scathing reviews from others who have studied Jack the Ripper more extensively and longer than she has. Why should she suddenly have the magical key that everyone's been looking for. Her suspect has been studied before along with countless others - what makes him different in this instance?
She purchased most of his art and reviewed letters sent to Scotland Yard and obtained DNA samples. However, the only thing she was able to prove with this was the fact the her suspect may have sent a letter or two taunting the police. Crime experts over several generations have concluded that the real Ripper only sent maybe one or two letters that the press and police received if any at all.
Read it if you have extra time to waste, but don't take it to heart. There are many other, better books about Jack the Ripper that are more thorough and informative.

I love Patricia Cornwell's fiction books...and that's where I think her strength is...in fiction. Portrait of a Killer is an interesting account of her discoveries while investigating the 114 year old Jack the Ripper case. Cornwell asserts that the identity of Jack the Ripper is Walter Richard Sickert, case closed. I find this a bold pronouncement considering that Cornwell did not provide the reader with one definite shred of evidence that clearly and unequivocably pointed to Sickert as the Ripper. What she did do, was provide alot of circumstantial evidence that when put together does make an interesting but unproven case against Sickert. Cornwell boldly inserts her opinions as if they were facts when recreating the Victorian era and what might have happened on the streets. She makes conjectures about interactions between the victims and the Ripper, conjectures about what might have occured between Sickert and the people he interacted with and conjectures about what the police did and didn't do. The fact of the matter is, Cornwell has forgotton that a man is seldom convicted on circumstantial evidence and it is only conjecture and coincidence that Cornwell presents. Yes, Walter Sickert painted pictures of violence, yes he has stationary similiar to the one the Ripper notes were written on, yes he had operations in his childhood that may have rendered him impotent, and yes he was odd..but this all amounts to an educated guess. Is it fair to write a book based on an educated guess? In my opinion it's Jack the Ripper, case still unsolved.

For those of you with long commutes on public transportation, this is the sort of book you will love, as I did; it's easy reading, with fascinating subject matter and mellifluous writing typical of Patricia Cornwell. Ms. Cornwell writes in a straightforward and well worded prose that holds the reader's attention while managing to convey the myriad scientific facts necessary for her subject matter.
That having been noted, she does not make what could be considered a truly strong case against her choice for the title of Jack the Ripper, English artist Walter Sickert. Granted, there are many years of poorly preserved evidence and scattered details forming a significant hindrance to her case, and she surmounts this carefully and skillfully, but in the end, leaves a few too many holes to reinter Mr. Sickert under a headstone reading Ripper. Take for instance her discussions of both the DNA testing and water mark comparisons of the Ripper letters as compared to Walter Sickert's probable DNA sources and personal stationary. Without ruining Ms. Cornwell's study of these facets, suffice to say that they would be highly unlikely to hold up in a modern trial.
To state that Walter Sickert was an eccentric who's behavior certainly lends itself to identification with this sort of crime is not a difficult jump to make. However, to end with a statement of having found once and for all the killer (based laregly on snippets of Freudian developmental psychology in relation to Sickert's supposed genital mutilation in childhood) is a bit of a stretch for such a scientifically-minded author.
Overall, Ms. Cornwell provides us with an entertaining book, which makes an interesting, if not wholly supportable case. I would state that while I don't believe Jack's necessarily been unmasked, it has developed in me an interest in the art of Walter Sickert, to which I had previously not been exposed; so we may arrive at the point of my review - good for reading on the train, interesting as an exposure to an artist, but just not convincing enough to pull others onto the Cornwell bandwagon.

Other factors aside, this is the most densely researched book I've ever read, and the details revealed are fascinating, as are the author's determination to discover and turn over every relevant leaf. Only an experienced forensic pathologist could find the clues and explain how times have changed scientifically since the 1880s. I don't think ID'ing Jack the Ripper has much historical significance, but the chase is exciting.

Where's the hard evidence? What little "evidence" Cornwell offered was circumstantial, coincidental, twisted, and misinterpreted. She never once had me convinced that Sickert and Jack the Ripper were one and the same. She only convinced me that Sickert was mentally unstable, and that the Ripper committed more crimes than he is credited for. Sometimes I started thinking of Sickert and the Ripper as interchangeable, but only because Cornwell authored her book in such a way. Sometimes she wrote about the Ripper being a famous artist, or Sickert being a psychopathic killer. It was very difficult to follow the story the way she wrote it. Kind of like my review, it was very disjointed. When she did happen to mention some of her "evidence" she wouldn't go into detail about what she found. She only said something like "this evidence provides compelling proof that Sickert was the killer!" But she never explains why or how. I did enjoy the book, as many other reviewers have said, as a tale of London's East End during the late 19th century, and as a bit of trivia about Walter Sickert and Jack the Ripper. I learned new things about the old case, such as the hundreds of Ripper letters that were written to the police. This aspect of the book was very interesting and well done. My final verdict: It has its good points, but each scene becomes more dramatic until the reader becomes annoyed and wishes the publisher had kaboshed the whole thing.

Walter Sickert was an interesting painter and case study, but despite the estimated $6 million author Patricia Cornwell reportedly spent investigating the Jack the Ripper mystery, no smoking gun is revealed in these pages. Cornwell, an author with previous crime lab experience who has gained fame and fortune with best selling novels about the exploits of forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta, provides potential DNA evidence to be used against Sickert to link him to the grisly Jack the Ripper murders, but as critics have noted, it is far from conclusive. Two important factors need to be remembered, 1) scores of letters purporting to have come from Jack the Ripper were received and reviewed by police, with most dismissed as coming from cranks; 2) Sickert was cremated, rendering the prospect of any conclusive DNA finding linking him to the killings virtually inconceivable.
The book has merit, however, on several fronts, just as long as one is circumspect about drawing too much on sometimes fragmentary conclusions concerning Sickert. Victorian England is revealed in fascinating detail, along with the shadowy world of London's East End, Whitechapel, where the Jack the Ripper murders occurred. Sickert is a fascinating figure, with his bizarre artistic genius and ability to hobnob with leading figures of late nineteenth century London. He was the apprentice of the legendary Boston expatriate who took London society by storm and remained to prosper, artist, journalist and bon vivant James McNeill Whistler.
While Sickert's artistic tastes revealed ghoulishness, the desire to paint luckless prostitutes with their hapless customers, it is understandable that he might draw attention as a potential Ripper possibility. He also was known to take walks in the dangerous Whitechapel area in late evenings. These are attention drawing elements, and perhaps render one a suspect, but it takes much more to pin the crimes on Sickert and establish that he indeed was the Ripper.
Due to the fact that so much time has elapsed since the murders were committed over a century ago, it is understandable that interest abounds with a number of prospects being considered. It is also understandable, and indeed likely, that after all the time that has elapsed that speculation will continue to abound without the Jack the Ripper mystery ever being solved.

This is the first Patricia Cornwell book I have read, but I enjoy reading true crime novels as well as historical fiction.
I have been fascinated by the Jack the Ripper murders for quite a long time, because the perpetrator was never brought to justice. I have not read any other "Jack the Ripper" books, because none appeared to be more than intellectual rhetoric and conjecture.
Through the frenzied prose, one can tell that Cornwell not only studied the Ripper, but has truly vested herself in finding the truth. She has brought together a collection of research never studied by one person, and added scientific testing (including DNA) to further her cause.
The only warning I have is that the subject matter is dark. You may have read true crime before, watched the Sopranos, and seen shows about the Ripper on the History Channel, as I have. The depths of depravity that Cornwell's suspect is purported to have sunk will still amaze and horrify you. There were evenings where I could not sleep because my heart was racing and my stomach was churning from disgust over the atrocities that were committed not only in the Ripper murders, but several other murders that Cornwell alludes may have been caused by her suspect.
Despite the gore, I couldn't put it down. An excellent read.

Patricia Cornwell claims she has the definite answer. The question? Who was Jack the Ripper?
According to Cornwell, the serial killer who terrorized late nineteenth century England was the artist Walter Sickert (I haven't spoiled the ending for readers; even the book flap reveals this information). Her unwavering solution is entirely reassuring. Although it is refreshing to see her vehemently stand by her accusation, it can also be terribly misleading. She occasionally throws in a paragraph or two on psychopathic tendencies that do not convey coherent messages of Jack the Ripper's motives, or lack thereof. Her generalizations of psychopaths are just that---generalizations. And I am not entirely convinced that she has an expertise in this psychological field. I am convinced, however, that she has done her research and knows the Jack the Ripper era and story as best as anyone possibly could. Some of her conclusions do appear to be somewhat farfetched.
However, this is an entertaining read that does offer an extremely plausible suspect. I'm not 100% convinced that Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper, but because of this account, he does seem to be the most likely suspect. If you are interested in this unsolved mystery, read this. But beware: even after reading this account, it will remain an unsolved mystery.

If there is one theory about the identity of Jack the Ripper there are probably a hundred. Thanks to Patricia Cornwell there are now a hundred and one. Unfortunately, the case does not appear to me to be quite as closed, as the title would suggest. Cornwell simply makes too many assumptions and there is no real proof of her theory. Much too often there are lines such as there is no proof that her "killer" was in London at the time of a murder, but there is no proof that he wasn't.
The "killer" the author names is the artist Walter Sickert. She offers as her first piece of evidence that Sickert was born with a genital defect and that the three operations to fix the problem may have left him deformed and unable to have sex. That of course led him to hate women. Freud would have been proud of Cornwell. She alleges that it is possible that he never consummated his marriages. However, since he was married three times it seems impossible that such a thing would not have come out. He was also accused of adultery in his divorce from his first wife and was said to have fathered a child by a mistress in France. Cornwell's theory is possible, but it seems a little farfetched.
Cornwell's evidence concerning some of the Ripper letters is far more convincing. The same DNA shows up on stamps from one of Sickert's as is found on two Ripper letters. The Ripper letters being notes someone sent to the authorities and the press claiming to be the Ripper. She does a good job of showing that Sickert was probably the author of some of these letters. However, the police at the time didn't consider these letters to be genuine and they can't have been as dense as the author would have us believe. Given Sickert's personality, which Cornwell deals with extensively, it seems obvious that Sickert would have thought it great fun to make up these letters so he could be a part of the story. As for the details he knew he seems to have been fascinated by these murders and could likely have found out most all of his information from the police.
Finally, Cornwell argues that Sickert's art gives him away. It is true that some of his art is disturbing but given his fixation on the Ripper case it is not at all unreasonable to expect to find some similarities to the Whitechapel murder scenes in his art. He was also fixated on World War I and hung around hospitals drawing the dead and dying though I doubt he was responsible for the war. The author also makes much of a painting Sickert did of his own bedroom which he called, "Jack the Ripper's Bedroom". The problem is that Sickert probably rented the room in the first place because the landlady was convinced that Jack the Ripper had once lived there.
Cornwell may have indeed named the real killer, but I doubt it. There are just too many unanswered questions. She has however, added another name to the list of possible suspects and has done an enormous amount of research. Research which may end up helping name the real killer, if he is indeed ever found out. One will most assuredly find information here that will not be found in other books on the subject. Being a novelist, Cornwell has also turned out a very readable book and I enjoyed it very much. I just don't think she has solved the crime.

There's one key problem to Patricia Cornwell's JACK THE RIPPER: CASE CLOSED book...she forgot that people just don't want the mystery and legend to be definitively solved. In a day and age where we still cannot convince 100% of the population that humans have been to the moon, for her to think that DNA, hand-writing samples, crime scene evidence, and detailed research, forensic, and historical work would lead to a solution that the populace would except...haha...not going to happen.

So, Patricia Cornwell believes that artist Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper. She backs this theory up with fact (many supported by picture evidence) and attention to detail. Furthermore, as much as she's been attacked for her theory, let's not forget that she wasn't even the first author to broach this idea but author Donald McCormick had a similar idea in his novel The Identity of Jack the Ripper.

Certainly Sickert shows signs of a troubled psyche and an odd happenstance of being physically near all of the canon-5 and future murders (both in and out of Whitechapel). Heck, the man even painted a picture titled JACK THE RIPPER'S BEDROOM. But for my money the key selling point is the similarity in the Ripper Letters and correspondence and a hotel ledger that show Sickert's writing and doodling matching exactly with each other.

Now, this all said. ME - I agree with Patricia Cornwell. I understand that other Ripperologists are terrified of the crime being solved or, GASP, of a woman solving the crime. And, in fairness Cornwell's prose and overall structure of the novel seem quite amateurish. It certainly was a mistake to not write the novel in a more chronological order.

Still, as a fan of true crime novels and history, I enjoyed the avenues that I was taken along in this book and would recommend it to anyone who wanted to learn more about Jack the Ripper and the evidence that still remains.

If anything, this book is perhaps proof that the Jack the Ripper obsession will never die, if only because it's unlikely it will ever be solved, at least 'conclusively'.
The book is arrogantly sub-titled 'Case Closed', and of course, it's anything but a closed case that Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper, or that James Maybrick was the Ripper, or Lewis Carroll was the Ripper, or the royals were involved, etc.
I'm not sure what to make of the whole business anymore. There are now close to 20 suspects in the Ripper case, and indeed in the 1990s alone quite a few new suspects appeared on the scene thanks to research and fanaticism on the part of various writers. Now Cornwall has thrown herself into it, and it's somewhat troubling.
Of course, at the end of the day, there's no smoking gun. There hasn't been a smoking gun, and given that the murders took place in 1888, and evidence and various records are long gone, it's highly unlikely there will be a smoking gun. The whole business already inspired someone to forge a 'Ripper' diary and try to pass it off. This has since been debunked numerous times, with the author himself swearing that it's a forgery, yet people still believe it. Every year someone discovers someone who was in London in 1888, hated women, etc, etc.
Folks who are interested in the Ripper may peruse this book, but it's clear from the 'evidence' and the layout that this is anything but 'Case Closed', if anything, it says something about Cornwall, who writes about her own doubt to this theory. And admittedly, while there are some nice coincidences, and Sickert indeed may have been a bit off his rocker, and indeed may have penned Ripper letters (of which there were many fakes), it's no more convincing than several other theories of the past ten years.
Notice the '71% off' price tag of this book, which shows you something in comparison to other books on the subject. There are much better books about the whole case, and you'll likely learn more from those if you care. It would be nice to put the whole Ripper case to rest, finally. The energy and resources some folks have put into 'solving' this business is becoming more alarming. Recommended if you must, but it's hardly a 'final chapter'.

This must rank as the most disappointing Jack the Ripper books written to date, and is closer to the realms of fiction than fact. Cornwell's prime suspect, painter Walter Richard Sickert, while indeed a very dark horse, displays no 'killer qualities' whatever. He was certainly a very strange, perhaps even a loathsome individual, but nothing to propel him into the stratosphere of a serial killer. For one thing, he is entirely lacking in motive, for another, no explanation is offered for the start of the killing spree, nor any reason given why the murders ended so abruptly. The proof offered up by Cornwell amount to little more than the ravings of a disturbed, rather than a criminally insane mind. Sickert's drawings of what might be the murder scenes are, it must be remembered, post, and not pre event demonstrating the effect the murders might have had upon this eminent painter's mind, but they do not mark him out as the murderer. Not convincing and the case is far from closed.

I truly admire Patricia Cornwell's amazing feat of making a case against Walter Sickert as Jack the Ripper. Going back to a notorious series of murders committed over a century ago is difficult subject matter to tackle--especially when she accuses a celebrated artist with fans still to this day. But she tackles these complications early. I especially admire her admitting that she is staking her reputation on this. Her conviction and devotion is admirable.

But I cannot admire her end result. Walter Sickert happens to have been a well known artist, who was more than strange. A psychopath, I cannot say for sure, but Patricia seems to believe it to the bone. She instantly calls him a killer and a psychopath, which makes it difficult to read with an unbiased eye. In fact, I instantly became critical over her dramatic damnation of someone I was unfamiliar with. Her words made me suspicious of her ability to argue her case. She starts to damn him immediately with little evidence. After a while, she does provide evidence, but she tends to overwhelm with odd evidence. Detail after detail about paper and watermarks. It was a strain to get through. The actual murders themselves are tentatively recreated, with much speculation thanks to her understanding of modern forensics. But the recreations and affirmed details are scant. Poor Mary Kelly's murder takes a mere dozen pages or so to explain, and it feels like an afterthought. Vicious language and doodles mean more to her case than anything else. For me, it is not good enough.

She states what evidence she has and what she cannot prove. Yet, she insists it had to be Sickert. It seems as though, to me at least, that she has more insinuation than actual facts. Facts are what she needs. Sickert was/is famous; he has fans that will protect him. To attack a man no longer alive with so little evidence seems in poor taste. Weirdoes are just that, weirdoes, not necessarily psychopaths. To assume such is dangerous. A misogynistic artist who might have been neglectful or abusive to his wives is not exactly atypical to the nineteenth century.

I also think Sickert is an easy target because he was famous. There are things about him we know. And she takes this evidence and "proves" guilt. Our courtrooms believe innocent until proven guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt. I doubt anyone who reads this book could convict this man in good conscience. Her strongest evidence is the paper samples and water marks, but even these are circumstantial at best.

Patricia Cornwell took on quite a task, for which I commend her. Although I am not convinced, I think it was interesting to read and a fun experiment with history. I cannot take the work seriously, and would hope for better execution of her research, better structure and evidence (devote more time to what you know, not what you hope you could prove or what you believe should be linked without a thorough explanation of why). She brings up new, fascinating details, but I would hope for better overall. Recommended.

I truly admire Patricia Cornwell's amazing feat of making a case against Walter Sickert as Jack the Ripper. Going back to a notorious series of murders committed over a century ago is difficult subject matter to tackle--especially when she accuses a celebrated artist with fans still to this day. But she tackles these complications early. I especially admire her admitting that she is staking her reputation on this. Her conviction and devotion is admirable.

But I cannot admire her end result. Walter Sickert happens to have been a well known artist, who was more than strange. A psychopath, I cannot say for sure, but Patricia seems to believe it to the bone. She instantly calls him a killer and a psychopath, which makes it difficult to read with an unbiased eye. In fact, I instantly became critical over her dramatic damnation of someone I was unfamiliar with. Her words made me suspicious of her ability to argue her case. She starts to damn him immediately with little evidence. After a while, she does provide evidence, but she tends to overwhelm with odd evidence. Detail after detail about paper and watermarks. It was a strain to get through. The actual murders themselves are tentatively recreated, with much speculation thanks to her understanding of modern forensics. But the recreations and affirmed details are scant. Poor Mary Kelly's murder takes a mere dozen pages or so to explain, and it feels like an afterthought. Vicious language and doodles mean more to her case than anything else. For me, it is not good enough.

She states what evidence she has and what she cannot prove. Yet, she insists it had to be Sickert. It seems as though, to me at least, that she has more insinuation than actual facts. Facts are what she needs. Sickert was/is famous; he has fans that will protect him. To attack a man no longer alive with so little evidence seems in poor taste. Weirdoes are just that, weirdoes, not necessarily psychopaths. To assume such is dangerous. A misogynistic artist who might have been neglectful or abusive to his wives is not exactly atypical to the nineteenth century.

I also think Sickert is an easy target because he was famous. There are things about him we know. And she takes this evidence and "proves" guilt. Our courtrooms believe innocent until proven guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt. I doubt anyone who reads this book could convict this man in good conscience. Her strongest evidence is the paper samples and water marks, but even these are circumstantial at best.

Patricia Cornwell took on quite a task, for which I commend her. Although I am not convinced, I think it was interesting to read and a fun experiment with history. I cannot take the work seriously, and would hope for better execution of her research, better structure and evidence (devote more time to what you know, not what you hope you could prove or what you believe should be linked without a thorough explanation of why). She brings up new, fascinating details, but I would hope for better overall. Recommended.

I gave this book four stars because of Patricia Cornwell's excellent writing style. She is very smart, of course, but writes with a smoothness little known in this genre. She certainly does provide convincing tidbits about Jack the Ripper, enough perhaps to make some people believe her choice of killers did it, but I had to think about reasonable doubt. So long after the infamous crimes, it is inevitable that Ms. Cornwell would be unable to collect enough physical evidence, even in conjunction with Scotland Yard, to prove her case. If I were a juror, I would have to plead not guilty. There is more than reasonable doubt, and some of her "facts" (for want of a better word) are definite stretches. In my heart, she almost has me convinced, but there is still that little bit of "almost" hanging around that insists this case is not closed. Having read most, if not all of Ms. Cornwell's books, I'm more on the believer side, as she is indeed an excellent forensic pathologist, usually in the person of Kay Scarpetta. I also thought that she gave Scotland yard an unfair shake, considering what they had to work with back then, often it sounds as though she blames the nearly unsolvability of the case on their shabby police work, when in fact, they simply did not have today's technology. She also balances this at point with some commendations for Scotland Yard, but I ended up feeling she was not pleased with their work back in the Jack the Ripper days and thought that even with little technology, they could have done better. It's your turn to be the juror.

Sheds virtually no new information on the Ripper killings. Cornwell provides very little in support of her claim that the artist William Sickert is the killer. Her evidence basically consists of suspect DNA tests, Cornwell's (and her handpicked cronies') own interpretations that some of Sickert's works depict violence against women, and may bear likenesses to Ripper murder scenes/victims. There is absolutely no application of the disciplines of the Scientific Method here to prove her hypothesis of the killer's identity. In fact, this book is tantamount to Cornwell stamping her feet stating that Sickert is the killer just because she says so.
Cornwell makes much hullabaloo over her spending $6 Million of her own money on this investigation...seemingly on travel and on buying up Sickert's drawings and paintings. It doesn't take too much imagination to figure that she's bought the paintings and "traveled for research purposes" to justify expenditures related to this "investigation." This in an attempt to beef up the value of the paintings of Sickert, which she now owns, by claiming they were the work of Jack the Ripper. It's a great ruse, hopefully one the IRS will look upon closely (how different is this than insider trading???), but it's an insult to those who have not had noteriety such as hers, and who have for decades performed valid scientific leg work to help solve this historically important crime spree.

I have just managed to get through this book, though it wasn't a noteworthy experience. Cornwell's tone throughout the book suggests grand arrogance and her deductions are based more on supposition than fact. The use of "may be," "could have been," "quite possibly," and a host of other statements of supposition are rampant in the book. To repeatedly refer to Walter Sickert as Jack the Ripper in her unabashed tone--without more concrete evidence--could be potentially liablous. In fact, I would not be surprised if Sickerts family or estate took legal action against Cornwell.
Cornwell is obviously out of her league when writing a book of this nature, and she should stick to what she appears to know best: fiction.
Bottom line: From the literary point of view, the book drones on in a rambling manner. And, as stated, the facts don't match her conclusions. Don't waste your money.

This book was an somewhat enjoyable tumble through the dark side of these horrible crimes. I've never had an opportunity to learn much about them, but it's always fun to place yourself in the seamy side of Victorian London once in a while. Unfortunately, that's about all I can say on the positive side.
"Case Closed"? How can someone who purports to be something of an expert in forensic science make such a claim based on what she presents? I kept expecting Cornwell to drop some bombshell pointing to Sickert as the Ripper, but it never came. The so-called "evidence" was interesting, but far from dispositive. This is especially dramatic in the matter of DNA. If there is one thing that can blow the lid off an old case like this one, it is this use of this extraordinary new technology. But once again, no bombshell. Far from it. Nuclear DNA (the most decisive) was unrecoverable, and MT DNA was inconclusive. I was especially angry that Cornwell seemed to mislead the reader by inferring some significance into the fact that a couple of genetic markers were found in both the Ripper's and Sickert's MT DNA. She of all people should know that this is essentially meaningless. It's not unlikely that my DNA would have a correlation of that magnitude. But I assure you, I have an solid alibi. The book read far more like an "In Search Of..." episode on UFOs than a hard hitting piece of criminal journalism.
Cornwell often admits to the speculative nature of her conclusions, but there it just too much of it to merit the book's subtitle. This left me feeling a little "had". Frankly, I'm a little embarrassed for her. I am not a reader of her fiction, but I had understood her to have a reasonably good reputation for "getting it right". I feel she has damaged that reputation with this book.

Patricia Cornwell's book is far from closing the case on the Whitechapel murders.

The book makes a strong start and builds a convincing case that British painter Walker Sickert was Jack the Ripper. However, Patricia is often very speculative in her theories (assuming this and assuming that), especially towards the end of the book. Her writing is very one-sided and she spent nearly no time debunking the other suspects or theories on who was Jack the Ripper. Indeed, there are several theories on why Sickert was NOT the Ripper and she failed to debunk those - rather, she made assumptions to fit what facts she could uncover about the painter. She does include some new evidence (DNA testing, handwriting analysis) but again, none of which are really conclusive.

When this book was first released, Cornwell was plugging it on 20/20. I happened to catch the show, and watched the interview. And I must say...I laughed quite heartily at what I heard. Watching her talk as if she were the first person to build a case against Walter Sickert was hysterical. Theories that Sickert was Jack the Ripper have been floating around for over a century...how very innovative of her to jump on the bandwagon.
Her claim that the evidence she's collected would be enough to make the Victorians cry "Hang him!" may be true. But consider that when a man named Squibby, who was wanted for nothing more than a petty assault charge, was seen running from a policeman in 1888 Whitechapel, one man cried "Jack the Ripper!" and before you can say "Bob's your uncle," there was a lynch mob, foaming and screaming for Squibby's blood. Despite police efforts to calm the mob and inform them of their mistake, they still howled "Lynch him! String him up!" So you see, getting those Victorians to cry "Hang him!" would be a very easy thing to do. Now, convincing ME...that's not so easy. Why? Because I know too much about the Ripper case to be taken in by this claptrap.
The Ripper letters that she based the whole of her research on were BOGUS. Though they were signed Jack the Ripper, they were not written by the killer. In fact, the ONE letter that was most likely real WASN'T signed Jack the Ripper at all. Why didn't she test that one, instead of testing letters that every Ripperologist in the world regards as frauds? Maybe because if she had, she would have come up with no "evidence" to link Sickert to the murders, and this preposterous best-seller of hers would have never seen the light of day.
All in all, the unoriginality of Cornwell's theory, coupled with the overwhelming lack of evidence to support her overblown, self-agrandizing claim that she's solved a case which has remained open for nearly 115 years, make for a wholly uninvolving and repugnantly arrogant reading experience.
Don't believe the hype. Cornwell essentially knew nothing about Jack the Ripper before she undertook this project. And so, even setting inaccuracies and outright deceit aside, this just isn't a good or competent Ripper book on ANY LEVEL. Pick up Donald Rumbelow's "The Complete Jack the Ripper" (AKA "Jack the Ripper: The Complete Casebook") instead. At least he knows his facts.

Patricia Cornwell, noted novelist, takes a crack at solving just who Jack the Ripper was. Her pick is Walter Sickert, an artist/actor that had an alleged penile deformity. By page six, Cornwell is saying Sickert is the Ripper, by page ten she full out states he is. Good for her but after reading the book, I'm not in the slightest convinced it was Sickert. It seems that her interest was raised when she was in London and was on a tour when D.A.C. John Grieve tells her to check out an interesting chap named Walter Sickert. In the paragraphs prior to this (pg 10) she admits having never read anything on the Ripper, known about his crimes & victims, or anything about him yet she can state she is 100% certain Sickert is Jack the Ripper now. Had Mr. Grieve not mentioned Sickert, would she have ever have heard of him?

It looks as though Ms Cornwell was given a suspect and then at her own expense made the suspect fit the crime. She does this by forcing herself to read more into his dreary paintings and drawings than is really there. The samples she uses for comparison of Sickert's doodles and alleged Ripper doodles bear little resemblance to each other. Her mtDNA tests are weak to the point of being useless and that's not counting the viable contaminants of over a 100 years. Cornwell won't accept that any of the alleged Ripper letters sent to Scotland Yard or London Police were faked by others. Then there's a repeated argument of hers is that while someone couldn't prove Sickert was there/doing this, no one can prove he wasn't there/doing that. Pretty shoddy "evidence" if you ask me. She does a nice job on descriptions on 1880s life but she got sidetracked an awful lot with seemingly unimportant items/people. She does virtually nothing to eliminate other prime suspects (not even touching on a few of the more serious contenders) as she convinced herself Sickert was the man. Rather than look at the evidence and suspects and slowly eliminating them, she seems to do her research backwards, starting at the end and making the evidence come to that conclusion. She then tries to attribute murders after the Ripper 'disappeared' to the Ripper/Sickert saying that he decided to up his ante and began mutilating and now dismembering the victims even more than before, but he just quit sending letters to the police.

This is a point of history where there is a 99.9% chance that we will never know who Jack the Ripper was. Cornwell's synopsis and jumpy timelines do little to 'close the case' by pointing at Sickert. I'd sooner believe that it may have been the William Stewart proposed "Jill the Ripper" before I would put my wager on Sickert.

All in all, it's worth the read to anyone interested in studying Jack the Ripper, but Cornwell's evidence is so forced and stretched beyond reasoning. Again, she seemed to be given a suspect and using a literary prybar, tried to make him fit into the conformity of Jack the Ripper. But then if I had spent an alleged $6 million dollars of my own money, I'd be pretty conviced too.

Jack the Ripper - Case Closed made me laugh so hard that I cried, so I had to give the book at least 2 stars. I don't know if Cornwell came up with her art critiques by herself, or if it was one of her "Team" (incidentally, her impressively large Team takes up just over two pages worth of solid credits). Either way, the "evidence" she derives from reading meaning into Walter Sickert's art is absurd. For example, in Sickert's sketches, what Cornwell describes as a "crouching, frightening-looking man who is about to spring on a woman", I see as a crouching, frightenED-looking man tip-toeing *away* from a woman.
But even if Cornwell's unconvincing analysis of Sickert's art as depicting terrible violence is correct, so what? As Cornwell herself explains later in the book, the Ripper murders "made the covers of tabloids" and "artists rendered sensational, salacious depictions of the murders". So ... perhaps Jack the Ripper was not *one* artist, but many!
One very enjoyable aspect of this book is that it is an account *of* a celebrity, written *by* a celebrity. This is a rare treat indeed!
Cornwell the celebrity belongs to the inner-sanctum of wealthy and well-connected crime writers, and she wanders through her book buying up artefacts and pieces of "evidence" that most people would be happy just to look at in a museum. She is also something of a namedropper, and clearly loves trotting out technical terms just for the sake of it (for instance, Sickert's studio "would not have eluded the scanning electron microscope, the ion microprobe, the x-ray diffractometer, or thin-layer chromotography" - if *only* his crimes had been committed 100 years later!)
One thing I do admire about the book is Cornwell's vivid recreation of time and place. The historical information about London's East End in the 1880s is detailed and intriguing (although I have no idea how accurate the information is).
At the end of the day, I find speculation regarding the identity of Jack the Ripper about as useful as arguments over the identity of the person who may or may not have written Shakespeare's plays. Afterall, *someone* did the deeds. Someone with certain skills and character traits, who lived at a certain time in a certain place. Someone who is dead. Someone whose work we'll never see the likes of again. Does it really matter *who* that someone was? It makes no difference to me.

Jean Overton Fuller must have had fits when her thunder (1990) was stolen by ms Cornwell a dozen years later, as this theory about Sickert was by no means original with the latter. It is true that Sickert did have an interest in brutal murderers, but so do you, dear reader, and so do I, and millions of others. We are not all Jack the Ripper. Whatever happened to Prince Albert Victor? Wasn't he the Ripper at one time? What about Virginia Woolf's father? What about Elvis? Ms Cornwell and her Sickert collection prove nothing. Please file this book under fiction. Why can't we all just admit that Jack, like Charles Manson, was some morbid nobody whose only claim to fame was his criminal career?

After reading the book and seeing a TV special (starring, of course, Ms. Cornwell), it is with deep regret that I must relegate both the book and the theory of Sickert as the Ripper to the scrap heap. She has committed the greatest sin of the true investigator, as pointed out by the fictional Sherlock Holmes. Instead of letting the clues lead her to a suspect, she starts out with an alleged perpetrator and then goes digging to find "facts" to support her case.
It is true that some of Sickert's work seems to show a startling propensity to portray women in deathlike poses very similar to some of the victims, as well as making references to the Ripper. However, it apparently never entered the author's mind that Sickert may have been inspired by the Ripper's handiwork,and chose to use these horrid events as subjects for his work. And what is so strange about asking permission to go inside and sketch the interior of Mary Kelly's abode? Instead of assuming that he wished to re-visit the scene of his crime and/or flaunt his work in front of the police, it may be that, like a modern photographer, he wanted to obtain material to portray the latest ravages of this killer.
This analysis could go on and on, with Ms. Cornwell ignoring anything that did not fit in with her belief in his guilt. Apparently Sickert's genital deformity was not so great that he could not father children, but the author chooses to downplay the fact he had a son. Sickert was also in France during part of the time of the murders, but again, this means nothing in her eyes. It is true that William Sickert had a dark side and some strange proclivities, but this does not make him a killer. Rather, it explains his fascination with the crimes.
Finally, linking Sickert to any of the Ripper letters would only prove that he wrote at least one of them. However, the authenticity of all the letters remains in doubt, with only the "From Hell" missive POSSIBLY coming from the killer. Just as today, there are attention getters who want to taunt the police and have their fifteen minutes of fame.
All the author has succeeded in doing is painting a very negative picture of a famous artist who had (and still maintains) a huge following of art lovers who are appreciative of his work and do not fancy the idea of a fiction writer blackening his name and memory.
Even Conan Doyle could not solve real life crimes. Stick to fiction, Ms. Cornwell.

Once you get over the arrogance of the subtitle: "Jack The Ripper, case closed", and start reading the book, what the reader finds is a collection of mostly circumstantial evidence. A previous reviewer had already mentioned the mDNA evidence. At best this proves that Sickert wrote some hoax letters. From what Cornwell describes of Sickert's unpleasant character, I can readily believe that he indeed did pen some hoax letters. This is the strongest thread connecting the Ripper to Sickert. As for the rest, it is merely circumstantial. The case for Sickert as the Ripper that Cornwell builds is certainly a possibility, but nothing more than that. A possibility. For Cornwell to describe the matter as case closed is a case of sheer arrogance. She does very little to rebut the case for the other key suspects. Druitt is a suspect she does dwell on, as is the Duke of Clarence, for a short while in the book. There are as most Ripperlogists will know other likely candidates; Ostrog and Chapman are two such candidates that spring to mind.
Cornwell's book is interesting reading, mainly because it is a splendid example of fitting the available evidence to suit a particular suspect. I chose to give the book only 2 stars, partly because of the title, but also because I felt the subject matter is unbalanced. Cornwell comes across as being one eyed; she was out to get her man, and damn any evidence that might suggest some other person (or persons) may be responsible for the Whitechapel murders. It is still a worthwhile read if only to see how a case for a particular person can be built from circumstanial evidence.
I became interested in the Jack the Ripper legend since watching the movie "From Hell" (which requires perhaps an even greater suspension of belief than is needed for this book; none the less the movie is quite good) and have since read a few books on the subject. Philip Sudgen's book is an excellent read, and I recommend it to other readers. What I have gathered from the material I have read, it is that we will never know who Jack the Ripper really was. Too much time has gone by, evidence has been lost or destroyed, and there are too many suspects. Any book that closes the case to this story has yet to be authored, and probably never will be.

I liked the early Kay Scarpetta novels for the forensic science, but the real "victim" in every novel is Kay Scarpetta (Cornwell's alter ego) herself. Her career is in jeopardy, her credibility, her niece's life, her own life...The poor ripped-up murder victims are as nothing to Scarpetta's problems.
Typically, "Portrait of a Killer" begins with the angst of its author. "It has always been easier for me to get angry than to show fear or loss, and I was losing my life to Walter Richard Sickert." A simple invitation to visit Scotland Yard is fraught with moral ramifications: "It would have been a betrayal of what I am and an insult to Scotland Yard and every law enforcer in Christendom for me to be 'tired' the day Linda Fairstein said she could arrange a tour." Her self-absorption is almost comical.
Cornwell makes no argument that comes close to justifying her conviction that Sickert was the Ripper. She seems to have formed her opinion of Sickert's guilt based on his art ("I saw evil"), then examined his life for facts to justify that opinion. Her presentation is poor: Facts about the murders, cultural history of the Victorian era, art criticism, and descriptions of modern forensic science are presented in a random jumble. Her own assumptions contradict themselves; after telling us that Sickert preferred his victims ugly and deformed, she offers no word of explanation as to why the Ripper's most grisly murder was of the young attractive Mary Kelly.
I have no theory as to who the Ripper was; he may even have been Walter Sickert, but certainly not based on this compilation of "evidence"!