Rating: 
Summary: Poorly written
Review: The book was useful in educating me about the Jack the Ripper case, about which I knew almost nothing. However, the book is poorly constructed and confusing. The author may have a persuasive argument that the English painter Walter Sickert committed the crimes, but the book is so disorganized that it is difficult to determine. The endless reminders (one would have been sufficient) that police agencies in 1888 had virtually no forensic capabilies (and then to list what they couldn't do) are tedious.
Rating: 
Summary: Garbage
Review: An arrogant, self-serving piece of garbage. Ms. Cornwell's arguments are self-referential. At the start of her book, for example, she claims that Sickert's three operations on his penis left him unable to perform sexually (though she later points out that she cannot possibly know any details about the results of the operations, because no records remain on that issue). Later, she takes her own specious "facts" as the basis for claims that Sickert's impotence was a source of his murderous rage. This book abounds with this sort of slapdash "research" and so rather than write an essay here, I will disagree with a previous reviewer who said "Don't waste your time." It is never a waste of time to examine a sterling example of a category, even if that category is "Poorly Written Tripe." Just get it from the library so you won't be adding to her highly publicized millions (How did she get so rich!?!? I have never even heard of her until this book came out!) She will just use them to write another painful book.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't close this case just yet.
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: No case at all
Review: Ms Cornwell starts the book by calling Walter Sickert a murderer, and continues the theme throughout. Unfortunately, she fails utterly to provide any evidence at all of his involvment in the Ripper murders, or any other murder for that matter. Stridency and repetition do not constitute proof. What most shocked me about the book was what was missing from it. A key point of her theory about Walter Sickert was his apparent impotence. Ms. Cornwell fails anywhere in the book to mention a certain Joseph Sickert, who maintains to this day to be Walter's illegitimate son. A bit of a hole in her theory that needs to be addressed. Either she was unaware of his existence (unlikely as she discusses the Dr. Gull/Masonic conspiracy, which was published in 1976 by Stephen Knight, who is also not mentioned in the book or bibilography, and which was based on allegations made by Joseph Sickert) or she made a deliberate decision to not mention him. The one case indicates an appalling lack of basic research, which casts doubt over the rest of her assertions; the second indicates either an inability to refute his claim or a cowardly refusal to challenge someone who is alive and able to file the defamation suit that Walter Sickert can't. Ms. Cornwell also fails to credit, or even mention, Jean Overton Fuller, who nominated Walter Sickert as Jack the Ripper in 1990 based on exactly the same artistic grounds that Cornwell uses. Ms. Cornwell states that she can't prove Sickert was in London in Sept 1888, but can find no proof he wasn't. Again, she must not have looked very hard. Sickert was on his usual summer vacation with his family in France in Sept, proved by letters from his mother, his wife, and Jacques Emile Blanche. This should be particularly embarassing for Cornwell as she quotes from Blanche heavily throughout the rest of the book. I am not a Ripper expert. All of the above information I was able to find on the Internet in a matter of a hour or so. The book has been called poorly edited by other reviewers. I suspect that the editing style is deliberate; to hide the complete lack of any sustance to her allegations.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting theory
Review: Unfortunately I get the impression that this book wasn't written by one person only. It looks like a poor compilation of modular, sub-contracted research work, which hasn't been reviewed in its entirety before going to print. Example: It is assumed that one is familiar with the background of individuals in the story - although this individual's background is explained hundreds of pages later. Or another example: There is repetitive insistence how a murder investigation would be handled today. It seems that the various teams involved in writing didn't interact very much. Patricial Cornwell might have a point with Walter Sickert's involvement. But such an accusation should be her conclusion after reviewing all of the facts at the end of an investigation. Instead, the accusation of Walter Sickert is the very building block of her book in the first chapter. This leaves both the authoring team and the reader in a dead-end trap of either trusting a non-professional investigator or not. Read this book only if you feel you want to read yet another theory about the Ripper case. The sub-title ("Case Closed") is plain wrong/misleading and seems to serve the only purpose of increasing the sales.
Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your time!
Review: I have read quite a few books on Jack The Ripper, as the whole mystery is fascinating. However, this book is not worth reading. Don't waste your time, she couldn't convince a 14 year old with her "proof". Case closed? I think not. If you must read everything about Jack, pick this up from the library. Good luck getting through it without getting a headache. A much better book is "The complete history of Jack the Ripper" by Philip Sugden.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Book!
Review: I listened to this in audio book format while I drove across country from NYC to LA. Excellent book... kept my interest, and presented a view of the Jack the Ripper myth I had never heard before. And, I think she is right. Excellent work for anyone who liked the movie "From Hell" or any other person interested in Jack the Ripper.
Rating: 
Summary: Sickert the Ripper?
Review: No previous author has applied such powerful forensic knowledge and imagination to these murders. Her case is compelling but inconclusive: "case closed" should not be in the title. She leaves no doubt that Sickert would be pulled in today for interrogation and forensic tests which would clinch the matter. As it is, a sick temperament and artistic imagination, opportunity, and a possible fascination with these murders are not enough. Even if he did write some/most of the Ripper letters, for which she presents a strong but unprovable case, even this cannot alone convict him. Ironically, the moment when I felt most convinced was when I looked into his eyes in one particularly chilling photograph of Sickert. A riveting read, full of information about the history of crime, forensic technqiques, and much else. But case not yet proven; possibly, at this distance, unprovable.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book with clearly presented material.
Review: I have read several books on the Jack the Ripper and although I don't fully agree with Patricia Cornwall's theory, anyone who insults her writing style and evidence did not read the book very carefully. She brings new light to the case with use of forensic science, as well as an incredibly researched history of Sickert. She presents him as a wounded, and psychologically damaged man, and her evidence was quite compelling.
Rating:
Summary: Too many "maybes"
Review: While the Walter Sickert theory presented in this book does seem quite sound, Patricia Cornwell seems not to have known where she was going with the story. Halfway between a crime novel and an exposé, she presents some valid facts to support the theory, but returns much to often to pure speculation. Maybe he was at the funeral, maybe not. Maybe he spoke to her, maybe not. In a book like this, the point is not to speculate and imagine, but to give concrete answers. Why call it "case closed" if there's still so much that's unclear?
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