Rating: 
Summary: Cornwell makes a solid case
Review: I have never read the author's fiction books, and the people who have seem to think that fiction is all she is supposed to write ("Self-righteous" and "unsympathetic"? Because her protagonist, Kay Scarpeta, is female and females aren't supposed to be hard-nosed and dedicated to doing their jobs? Please!).That said, the majority of these reviewers must have been reading a different book that I read. It held my interest from start to finish. She makes a solid case for Walter Sickert being Jack the Ripper. Case solved, as far as I'm concerned.
Rating: 
Summary: Not exactly "case closed" - It's more like "highly likely."
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't waste your time or money
Review: I am a HUGE fan of Patricia Cornwell, especially the Kay Scarpetta series. Also a big fan of any real crime writing or program, I was THRILLED to see that Cornwell was tackling Jack the Ripper (I had read a couple of things about the case before, including the hoax diary). Unfortunately, this book has done nothing but long for better Scarpetta days. The evidence she provides, while sometimes interesting, is somewhat absurd at times. There are awkward and forced connections made throughout. I had to force myself to complete the entire book. Even the writing style and organization of the book was lacking. If you are looking for a book measuring up to Cornwell's normal standards, or a great and conclusive book about Jack the Ripper, THIS IS NOT FOR YOU. Keep on searching.
Rating:
Summary: Patricia Cornwell may consider sticking to fiction.
Review: Having never read Ms. Cornwell's fiction, I was completely unbiased in reading this first work of seeming non-fiction, and do not feel any loyalty to whatever her works of fiction may be. As an historic account, this book's central tenet--that Jack the Ripper was a discreetly malformed but highly successful impressionist artist--might have some credibility with some sturdy, linear conveyance of evidence. The book teams with this evidence, but it is described in such a hapharzard, circuitous manner that I found the author contradicting herself on numerous occasions. To claim that the vast majority of Ripper letters were authentic in the early pages, only to blatently ascribe their fraudulence nary a hundred pages later--sloppy indeed! If she had only taken the seeming evidence of violent paintings and drawings, the various Ripper and Sickert correspondences, the murders and subsequent investigations, and addressed them all in a more coherent manner, her theory would be much more tenable. As it is, the book itself is barely readable--appealing only to one's sense of morbidity and much less to one's sense of proof or justifiable accusation. Patricia takes a moment in her acknowledgements to thank her editor--I would thank the editor to completely overhaul the information in this book and regurgitate in a linear fashion--for both the readers' and the author's benefit.
Rating:
Summary: The first instinct is usually the best
Review: As Ms. Cornwell herself admitted in the opening pages, she was hesitant to finish this work - she should have acted on that impulse. In brief, this is almost certainly among the least impressive on what has become a cottage industry: books claiming to "solve" the Jack the Ripper Case. Ms. Cornwell does take a novel approach (sort of) in that she first identifies a suspect and then starts building an extraordinarily weak circumstantial case against him. Hardly the way we normally do things in proper law enforcement (or in forensic investigations, for that matter). Though she does not acknowledge this in the text, the idea of Walter Sichert as a suspect was not even original - that tenuous argument was advanced in a 1990 book by Jean Fuller. While Ms. Cornwell has worked professionally as a computer programmer in a medical examiner's office and no doubt added to her knowledge of forensics since, her approach - largely consisting of her subjective analysis of Sichert's drawings and paintings with less-than-keen insight, and with some unproven and overly-generalized psychological theory thrown into the mix - ultimately fails on both an investigative and literary level. With the "evidence" she has revealed, no sane prosecutor would even begin to consider filing an indictment based on such a patently silly collection of "proof." As regards the supposedly ground-breaking DNA results, they demonstrate that Walter Sichert just MIGHT have, maybe, licked a stamp on letters which she quickly concludes are from the actual killer - again, it would be more effective to conclude that Queen Victoria was the Ripper than to proceed on the premise that Ms. Cornwell has finally "solved" this intriguing murder mystery. Not hardly.
Rating: 
Summary: Well written but the case seems fradulent rather than closed
Review: This book is well written but the evidence Cornwell presents is definitely not convincing. She seems to proceed with the definite premise that Sicket was the murderer. She then goes on to reject evidence that does not fit this hypothesis and also make a large number of unsubstantiated claims. Take an example. She notes that Ripper letters were posted from several places including France and America. Then she goes on to say, that they must have been hoaxes, because Sickert never visited America! I definitely got the impression that Cornwell was trying to awe people into accepting her evidence by throwing around some jargon[though the book is readable]. This is the oldest trick in the book and does not stand up to scrutiny. Finally, a comment about her generalizations. Cornwell seems fond of making universal generalizations -- about the nature of pscopathic killers for example. She suggests that their 'frontal lobe' is damaged! Leaving aside the question of when someone becomes a psycopathic killer(is Kissinger one? Is Bush one?), the statistics she quotes seem to be untenable. Take an example: Cornwell says that 4% of the population at large and 25% of the prison population have the trait that marks a person as a psycopathic killer[abnormal frontal lobe]. This is completely untenable because it suggests that a large section of the prison population is in prison because of genetic characteristics rather than socioeconomic factors. This thesis has been falsified. A quick calculation-- that I leave to the reader--will show the fallacy of Cornwell's statistic.
Rating:
Summary: Repeation of assertions does not a conclusive proof make..
Review: Patricia Cornwall is a good writer of fictional detective thrillers, these I adore, but perhaps she should stick to her imaginary plots. This book started out well, but got bogged down with unnecessary and often irrelevant tangents and repetition. I suspect Patricia felt insecure about venturing off into a factual arguement about an actual case, so she anxiously tried to convince the reader by lengthy restatement of the same assertions. The book contains 365 pages of text, but could have been edited back to around 200 pages. A reader is capable of accepting that many modern methods of forensic analysis were not available when the 'Ripper cases' occured in the late 1880s, without needing to be told in triplicate that if a certain type of analysis had been available (i.e. DNA or fingerprinting etc.) then successful detection of the ripper's identity could have occured. Let's face it Patricia, given the forensic limitations of the genre conclusive evidence was not (and never will be) available. The book makes a plausable, compelling case for Cornwall's Ripper candidate Walter Sickert, utilizing various recovered data (saliva, fingerprints etc.) reassessed using modern scientific forensic techniques. Patricia deserves high praise for pursuing all available sources and uncovering this evidence, but we will never have conclusive, irrefutable proof as the actual perpetratior is deceased. If Patricia just accepted the fact that all she can achieve is a conpelling suspect and leave it at that then the book could have been wrapped up at least 100 pages earlier. Some truths can never be known (given the circumstances) and bemoaning the 'if only' and 'what ifs' for multiple pages will not change that. I propose she reworks the offering and publishes a revised edition, I do think it was worth writing. I was convinced about half way through the book, the second half was unnecesary straining even my perservance to finish. My conclusion is that Cornwall needs a more ruthless and autocratic editor. Had bemoaning the limitations of the available hard data been omitted this would have been a good, albeit much shorter, book.
Rating:
Summary: Teeeee-dious
Review: Let me start by saying I was a big Cornwell fan for a couple of her books, but decided her fiction was a little dark and her protagonist self-righteous and unsympathetic. I've continued to read her books hoping that she'll temper her holier-than-thou narrative style. Thus the purchase of this book. "She doesn't fail to disappoint" comes to mind. Her narrative here is disjointed, she has no definitive conclusions and page after page of speculation. There were times I had to check the page numbers to make sure I hadn't skipped a page. Could she be absolutely correct in her assumptions? You betcha. Does she "close the case"? You decide -- but don't buy this book, just borrow one from someone who's pitching it.
Rating:
Summary: Not conclusive but what could be at this stage?
Review: There's been so much speculation about Kennedy's assassination that, despite compelling and strong evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald (In Case Closed) did it alone, the subject has taken on a literary and profitable life of its own. The same could be true for Jack the Ripper. More time has passed and, as a result, the evidence continues to become more and more distant from the present. I was dubious about the conclusions of Patricia Cornwell's book--how could a one mystery writer tackle and solve such a difficult case? While much of the evidence is circumstanial (outside of the DNA evidence), Cornwell convinced me that she may have solved some of the Ripper murders. I'm not someone that has had a fascination with these type of things, but her observations (both physical and psychological), evidence and conclusions are pretty daunting. Walter Sickert was a well known artist of the time. He demonstrated qualities similar to what is suspected about Jack the Ripper and had a physical infirmery that could have led him down the path of murder and mutilation. Cornwell looks at Sickert's background, art, his writing, where he lived and many other elements and comes to the conclusion that he was, indeed, saucy Jack. Is it possible? Very. One point, though, is that copycat mutiliations, murders and letter writing (along with time) has obscured much of the evidence. It's possible that there was more than one murderer. It's also possible that Sickert may have written some of the letters attributed to Jack without actually being Jack. There's no way to know for certain. Regardless, Cornwell makes a strong case for Sickert as Jack. The type of concrete evidence we're accustomed to in our day and age wasn't available then and there. There's also been so much misinformation over time that it's getting very sticky to separate fact from fiction so 100% certainty may continue to elude us as to what face the Ripper wore. Either way, Cornwell's well researched book is thought provoking. You may disagree with her conclusions but until you're able to come up with first hand evidence and observations about the case, it'll be mere idle speculation. Her speculation isn't idle--it's on target most of the time.
Rating:
Summary: From Hell...
Review: I loved this book. As someone with an avid interest in the "Jack the Ripper" cases, I have seen and read many things on the topic and I am thouroughly convinced of Sickert's guilt. This was the first book I have read of Cornwell's and I thought it was great. The amount of information included - though graphic and sickening, was unbelievable. Cheers! Great read.
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