Rating: 
Summary: Term Paper
Review: This book would be perfect if you are into reading term papers. I personally enjoy the Kay Scarpetta series and thought this books was too dry and boring to say the least.
Rating: 
Summary: A Waste of 28 Bucks!
Review: Fortunately, they weren't my 28 bucks. Borrowed my sister's copy of this book. Not history, not fiction. Just pure exploitive, gratuitously gossipy character assassination. Cornwell is fortunate that Sickert has no living heirs to silence this destruction of an artist's reputation.No footnotes, a lot of opinion and little else to persuade the reader of Cornwell's illogical conclusion. And, even if Cornwell could convince her audience (and she doesn't) that Sickert authored the Ripper letters, it is still a huge deductive leap to assume that the author of the letters was the killer. I was also shocked to learn that Cornwell bought some of Sickert's paintings and destroyed them in the failed attempt to extract forensic evidence. Cornwell is not a scientist, art historian nor historian. She should stick with her brand of weakly written fiction. Do I have to give it even one star?
Rating: 
Summary: Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper - Case Closed
Review: I found the book compelling, well-told, researched and credible. Her depiction of l9th century London slums is bleak but when one visits some of those places today, they appear rather dismal still, even in daytime.
Rating:
Summary: Not as pitiful as Isle of Dogs
Review: After Isle of Dogs which I pre-ordered, I will never buy Patricia Cornwell without checking it out in a bookstore first. I perused this book and decided against the purchase. I hope Patricia Cornwell will return to her fiction which I and my friends used to wait for with baited breath.
Rating:
Summary: Hung Jury?
Review: Did Scotland Yard's John Grieve (to whom the book is dedicated) use Patricia Cornwell? The Yard wouldn't reopen this case, but Grieve saw an opportunity and moved quickly -- give Cornwell access to all the Ripper files and let her do what The Yard did not. Point her directly towards Walter Sickert and, voila! (Did Grieve mention only Walter Sickert's name?) "When you go after the King, you'd better bring him down." Cornwell's book is probative, not conclusive. Interesting, not compelling. Contrary to her statement, "He is caught," he is not caught. Cornwell ignores Occam's razor at her peril. The bibliography contains neither Stephen Knight's work, Jack the Ripper; the Final Solution, 1976, nor Colin Wilson's A Casebook of Murder, 1969. Knight's book became problematic -- Freemasonry, Gull, grapes, etc., but Knight did bring Walter Sickert into play. Knight was disturbed by Sickert's paintings and felt Sickert may have been the murderer. (Knight also claims his primary source was Joseph Sickert, Walter's illegitimate son. Joseph Sickert recanted his story, but did Joseph state he was not related to Sickert?) Wilson concluded that Ripper was not a renowned Londoner and his identity may, alas, be known only to history. Footnotes. You read a sentence like, "Nothing mattered to Sickert unless it somehow affected Sickert." Source? Sickert's nephew, John Lessore? (Lessore thought the idea that Sickert is the Ripper was "rubbish.") "The anticipated connubial bliss of the flamboyant artistic genius . . . James McNeill Whistler must have been disconcerting to his former errand boy-apprentice [Sickert.]" Source? "One might almost have called [Sickert] pretty, except for his mouth, which could narrow into a hard, cruel line." We see Sickert photos and you could look at one and, yes, "a hard, cruel line." You could then look at that same photo and, no, that's not a hard, cruel line. (Are there photos of Sickert smiling? They are not in this book.) Other authors have read things into Sickert's paintings; Rorschach revisited? Sickert's piece, "Ennui" -- there is a painting on the wall behind the two subjects and Cornwell says if you look closely at the background painting-within-a-painting, you'll see a man coming up behind the woman there. You see no such thing. You need to get on-line, copy "Ennui" into photosuite -- increase contrast until an image of a man's head appears behind the woman. The problem is the "figure" isn't rendered in the same style as the rest of the painting. In another drawing, we're told it's "a man stabbing a woman to death." Find a knife in the man's hand. (The piece is from Oswald Sickert's collection. Oswald was Walter Sickert's father.) Alongside the knife-attack sketch, a drawing of "a brute lunging for a woman." It looks more like a woman being solicitous of a chap who has fallen into a pal's arms. (Again, from Oswald's collection.) Take "Persuasion," from Walter Sickert's collection. Is the chap whispering sweet-somethings to a scantily clad woman? She's alive and likes what she's hearing. (Cornwell ties this painting to a murder in Camden Town, 1907, and Walter Sickert.) Joseph Sickert is problematic to Cornwell. If Walter Sickert did father a child, then he wasn't rendered impotent as a result of surgery for hypospadias (a penile fistula.) If Sickert was potent, then Whistler's marriage and happiness may have been of no import to Sickert. This is important. (Some of Sickert's contemporaries describe him as a ladies' man, a flirt, not afraid of a good time.) Sickert may have had complications with a fistula in ano. His surgeon, Alfred Cooper, specialized in anal fistulas. There were qualified penile surgeons in London and the Sickert family had the means to send Walter to the best specialist.
There is no DNA evidence, and Sickert was cremated. (Cornwell may write a sequel if more evidence appears. But every time pieces of Ripper evidence are "declassified," released, whole pieces "grow legs.") Cornwell found some "egg white," but not the "egg yolk." She found mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) traces in an etching on a Ripper letter and matches between an allegedly authentic Ripper letter and letters handled by Sickert. (Cornwell sets herself apart from Ripperologists concluding Sickert wrote virtually all the letters. Most experts believe only a handful were written by the killer.) Remember, with respect to Ripper DNA and mtDNA evidence, the potential for degradation, 1888 forward: the paper itself, London weather, re-handling of the letters by too many people, repeated sealing, unsealing, continual packing, unpacking of the evidence. Can DNA stand up to these insults over the years? Here mtDNA is close, but no cigar. In fact, ". . . the maternal inheritance pattern of mtDNA might also be considered problematic. Because all individuals in a maternal lineage share the same mtDNA sequence, mtDNA cannot be considered a unique identifier . . . apparently unrelated individuals might share an unknown maternal relative at some distant point in the past." With an mtDNA match, one can only conclude that Sickert -- along with one percent of the London population, 1888, some 40,000 people -- can not be eliminated from consideration as mailing the letter. If you prove conclusively that Sickert handled a letter, via mtDNA or what remains of fingerprints, that doesn't make him a serial killer. Would Sickert, the prankster, send a hoax letter to The Yard? Much is made of A. Pirie & Sons' watermarks on some of the correspondence. Two are highlighted by Cornwell -- the Ripper's letter to Dr. Openshaw, and a letter from Sickert to Whistler. Remarkable until it's discovered that Pirie stationery blanketed London, 1888. Mary Kelly's body was discovered November 9, 1888. Cornwell pins the Kelly murder on Sickert, but Peter Corris writes in the Sydney Morning Herald last year, " . . . he (Sickert) was having dinner with Oscar Wilde in the Cadogan Hotel" the night of the slaying. Is Colin Wilson right? The Ripper swallowed whole by the London fog?
Hung jury.
Rating:
Summary: Big Disappointment
Review: I am a Cornwell/Scarpetta fan, and find all of her fiction well written, intriguing, and fun to read. However, this book is so poorly written and so completely unorganized that it takes away from the incredible research and the exclusive story. The editor within me wanted to take this material and organize, re-write and give it some continuity and congruence. Overall, the book is a unique and an execeptionally well researched answer to the Jack the Ripper mystery, but the reader has to yank and pull to get the story and the facts out of the book.
Rating: 
Summary: BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT
Review: Despite the "2-Star Spotlight reviews", I believe that Patricia Cornwell's latest book, "Portrait of a Killer-Jack the Ripper Case Closed" is an exceptional piece of criminal and journalistic investigation. Ms. Cornwell appears to have utilized as many tools possible in order to prove her point that Walter Sickert was in fact, "Jack the Ripper." As in any investigation, there are of course, innuendo's, speculations, coincidence, and circumstantial evidence. However, I feel that Ms. Cornwell's investigation and insight finally leads the reader beyond that "gnawing shadow of a doubt." Without further forensic proof, or a confession from Sickert's ghost, the 100% proff positive that everyone is expecting... simply won't occur. This case, like the "Black Dahlia," will always remain controversial. However, if Patricia Cornwell were the District Attorney presenting her book as the final argument to the Jury, then...I would find Walter Sickert, Guilty "beyond a shadow of a doubt." Excellent work!! Thank you.
Rating:
Summary: Good content, bad presentation
Review: I was really excited to read this book, but I have to say, I was pretty disappointed by it. I guess if the goal was convince me that Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper, then the goal was accomplished. The problem I had with the book is that the presentation was very hard to follow. The book was constantly jumping back and forth between Walters Sickerts history, the different murders and the present in a way that I found confusing. A timeline of when the murders occured (including the ones she speculates are done by Sickert, but are not thought of as "Jack the Ripper" murders) would have been helpful to try to see patterns. Another missing piece for me is why Jack the Ripper suddenly stopped. Patricia Cornwell speculates that he probably didn't stop committing murders, but why did he stop writing the letters? He obviously loved the attention it brought, so why stop after that had been his modus operandi for so long? The last criticism I had of the book is the ending. The book ended abruptly with the death of his 2nd (of 3) wife. Why end there? I couldn't believe when I turned the page and that was the end! There was no wrap up or conclusions of any kind. For anyone who has always wondered who Jack the Ripper was, you must read this book. It's extremely detailed and as I said, convincing. Her insights into the psychopathic mind are fascinating. She also makes a strong case that Walter Sickert was a violent psychopath. However, you may find as I did that the book could have been much better had the presentation been clearer.
Rating:
Summary: her mistake was in the Title
Review: Her first mistake is in the title. If should just read "Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper" and that is it, forget about the 'Case Closed' bit. As a very avid fan of Cornwell, I find it very surprising to find that she has made such a strong judgement on Walter Sickert in this book to proclaim his guilt so definitively with such circumstantial evidence. I do, however, agree that Walter Sicker was not a man in his right mind and perhaps killed women himself at some point. His hatred of women is relentless as has been well documented in other writing but that can only be a contribution to her investigation and not used as evidence as she has done in this book. I am also surprised that she has put her reputation on the line as being someone who has to see hard cast evidence and enough of it to prove guilt to just dismiss this side of her for this book. I feel that she had already proven Sickert's guilt in her own mind before starting her full investigation and used the investigation as her justification to back her opinions up. On the other hand, it is very telling that so much of her time and efforts (even more than her other works) have been put into this case. She has researched so much and yet her evidence still only points in one direction. Sickert could well have been the killer but I still see the case as open and that Cornwell's investigation, although contributes well to finding the killer, is not enough to prove that it was, in fact, Walter Sickert. I did, however find the book entertaining and a gripping read and also educational of that time period. It was very detailed in so many areas, it was excellent to learn those points in itself. I still recommend it for those reasons but not to commit guilt to this man.
Rating:
Summary: Jack the Ripper: Case Not Closed
Review: The other reviewers have it right--a very confusing story is revealed by the author. The strongest evidence for Sickert being the Ripper is (1) the mitocondrial DNA which he shares with the Ripper and 1% of the human race, (2) a rare note paper that they both used, (3) a surmise that Sickert's sexuality was bent due to a birth defect dealing with his ***, (4) the writer of the Ripper letters was well educated and familiar with painting techniques (some letters were painted rather than written with a pen), and (5) Sickert was a weird, selfish man who might have done it. Without a breakthrough in the evidence (for instance, finding Sickert's mother's grave and stealing some tissue since the rest of his brothers and sister were cremated and he had no kids), this is just a case of coincidence. Sorry Patricia. I watched her talk to the Virginia Institute of Forensic Science on CSPAN about two weeks ago and was sufficiently impressed to go out and buy the book with some Christmas money. I just skimmed the last half of the book--her case had fallen apart by then--I want my money back. She was never able to prove that Sickert was even in the area of the killings though she tried. I am convinced that Sickert was a weird person, and he treated his three wives rather badly.
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