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Summary: Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper-- Case Closed by Patri
Review: I recently read this book and found it extremely believable. I believe Ms. Cornwell has discovered who Jack the Ripper really was and she did a great job.
I have been interested in Jack the Ripper since my twenties and I really feel this case can be closed once and for all. I think most people will feel this is not a factual book, but that's because they want to keep the "mystery" of these hideous crimes going. I LOVE mysteries, but I also love to solve them and in my mind Ms. Cornwell did just that. Read this book and judge for yourself. She made a believer out of me.
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Summary: This Case Is Still Open
Review: Cornwell seems not to have read the large body of research done on Jack the Ripper. She proposes a case which hinges on the idea that many, maybe most, of the several hundred "Ripper" letters that were sent to the authorities were written by the real Ripper who was, in fact, Walter Sickert. She asserts that an artist could easily diguise his handwriting but offers no expert corroboration or proof. The touted DNA evidence is equally suspect. This is a disappointing book for anyone who has read anything about Jack the Ripper.
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Summary: Guaranteed to put clouds in your sunshine.
Review: Seems to me Ms. Cornwell is getting tired. Of course, she's earned it. I wish I could write even one book the caliber of her earlier ones. For more than a decade, I've looked forward to her new book every year, but I didn't bother to finish this one and returned it the day I bought it. Beginning with The Last Precinct, which was really over the top with 'unnecesary roughness' (please, Patricia, no more old dogs at the bottom of swimming pools with bricks tied to their feet), it seems that either Ms. Cornwell personally or Kay Scarpetta has gone from melancholy to clinically depressed, and I hope whichever one of them it is feels better soon. I miss the smart, sensitive (to be sure) but 'together' Scarpetta, and Lucy as an FBI agent (and Benton Wesley ...I wish he'd come back from the dead a'la Bobby Ewing on Dallas). One other point re: the Ripper > Into the lives of his unwashed, diseased, and semi-toothless victims and the seaminess of London's east end is not a place I care to go so explicitly (and it isn't the gore; it's the smell). Frankly, I found myself thinking 'who cares if they're dead?' Come to think of it, who cares about Jack the Ripper? I thought I did, but, nah.
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Summary: Persuasive, but needs editing
Review: I thought the text of the book needed some editing; the evidence was not laid out as clearly as it should have been and sources were not always explained well. I also thought that given the notoriety and history of this case, the size of the book and Cornwell's own expense, the book underutilized illustrations. I wanted to see more of Sickert's paintings and more of the Ripper letters. If this is the definitive book on Ripper, the last word, then no expense should have been spared in convincing the audience and displaying all the evidence. Nonetheless, I found her argument persuasive.
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Summary: I have no respect for Particia Cornwell
Review: Firstly the case is not closed, she merely provides a hole filled theory. I lost all respect for her when she was interviewed regarding people refuting her claims. She repiled that people did not aggree with her because "I am a woman and an American". Grow up, how embarrasingly sad. Just write, don't talk.
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Summary: Portrait of a Killer
Review: Not only was this a well researched and written book,I belive it to be the most convicing book on who Jack the Ripper was.I spent most of my life in Law Enforcement. In an Crimnal Investigator capacity. I have read almost all of the books on this Subject. The evidence is really quite convencing, for this old of a crime.I belive that the author,has her man. When there is this much evidence,you just cannot walk away with a reasonable doubt. At any rate, a person who have to read almost all the books on the Ripper's case. To see what I mean.Mrs. Cornwell done a supreme job! I too would take it into court. I belive a Judge would convict. I never try to guess a Jury.
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Summary: Cornwell's Most Intriguing Ever
Review: I was never really interested in the Jack-the-Ripper movies and I didn't expect much interest from my favorite writer. However, she has captured my interest with this new book. It is very interesting in the way it is put together with the pieces of science breaking through a hundred years of silence. How strange the layperson can put together her imaginings of his crimes? It is amazing how much one can understand when put in other ways. She seems to have done her research and so have the others that she contacted for help in these killings. How very interesting human behavior can be?
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Summary: What did Jack paint with?
Review: Has Patricia Cornwell unmasked the beast of Whitechapel - the original "Hannibal the Cannibal," who, by his own taunting admission, ate one of his victim's kidneys?This purported solution, in which Cornwell confidently lays the blame on the English painter, Walter Sickert, is a ripping good read. Cornwell is, clearly, obsessed with her subject and driven to hunt down the most famous serial killer of all time. She is a formidable researcher who uses a potent mix of forensic evidence, psychological profiling, gut instinct and a bombshell discovery of one of Sickert's lost paintings that is as convincing as it is nightmarish. Sickert is not a new suspect in the Jack the Ripper rogue's gallery. Nor are the author's observations that some of Sickert's paintings show eviscerated female bodies that mimic the actual Ripper killings. However, whereas past researchers have used less than credible speculation about the killer's ties to Freemasonry or to the Royal family, Patricia Cornwell sticks to the more sober path of modern criminal tools and profiling. Moreover, she looks for (and finds) similar killings in areas that Sickert was known to have lived in, both before and after the infamous Ripper killings of 1888. It is unlikely that history will accord this book the ultimate epitaph - "case closed" - any more than conspiracy theorists will accept any one "final" version of the JFK assassination. The Ripper legend has entered into that peculiar realm of the cultural Rorschach test that reveals more about its interpreters than it does of its own inscrutable nature. Yet, there is a sense, towards the book's conclusion, that Patricia Cornwell has made the best case thus far and perhaps, just perhaps, finally revealed the face of a man whose actions presaged so many 20th century horrors. A truly strong and compelling book.
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Summary: Save your money - and skip this book.
Review: Cornwall uses a dead man, Walter Sickert to bolster her non-existant case. With any kind of karma, Mr. Sickert's relatives will sue her for her outrageous claims.
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Summary: Interesting, but I'm not convinced.
Review: I enjoyed this book. It was interesting and I felt it was worth the read. However, I give it three stars instead of a higher grade for the following reasons. First of all, it failed to convince me that Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper. I wanted to believe; to be convinced. While there were a lot of evidences and coincides that were brought forth, too many of them seemed interpreted to fit, and didn't seem to me to exclude anyone else. Least convincing was the supposed evidence in Sickert's artwork. While there were indeed similarities between some of the subject matter and the post-mortem photos of the victims, they were no more that similarities. Secondly, while much of the book is very well written, particularly the parts that descripe the victims and Sickert himself, other parts aren't. Plus the overall organization of the book makes it difficult to keep track of all the evidence and the author's interpretations. The best evidence Cornwell provides is her reasons for excluding the more well known suspects. While Sickert could have been the Killer, here evidence didn't exclude anyone else. Though it is true that much of the original evidence has vanished making a definitive revelation of the killer difficult if not impossible, that weakened the arguements in my opinion. Still, it was an enjoyable read, and worth the time.
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