Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper-- Case Closed (Berkley True Crime)

Rating:
Summary: A good case. . .but is it closed?
Review: Not to ruin the story for you, but Patricia Cornwell thinks that artist Walter Sickert was the legendary serial killer known as "Jack the Ripper." She spent a lot of money and time to come to this conclusion. Indeed, in the true crime account she weaves she spends a lot of pages trying to tie every thread together to convince you that she is correct. Is she? I was left uncertain, even at the end after considering all the information (and the lack of information). A lot of this book is repetitive (it just repeats itself, it keeps on saying the same thing, it will hammer something in again and again until you understand. Understand?). In fact, it brought up the same information so many times that I considered that Cornwell really and truly did not have enough to justify the length of this book (or, at times, various claims). In the end, though, it is a good read and she comes fairly close to making her case that Sickert was "the Ripper." However, with so many theories needing proof, I was left to wonder if this case would ever be closed.

Rating:
Summary: Case not quite closed... must sit on it
Review: Portrait of a Killer is addressing one of the greatest (or rather, most infamous) murder stories or just STORY of our time. It was left completely unsolved, even by the famous Scotland Yard. This is the first of Patricia Cornwell's works i have read and enjoy her writing style, her matter-of-fact manner and the periphery she brings to the table that helps you understand more than just one single event, but more about legal process in that day and the deficiencies in investigation, as well as the developments since then.
WIth a case that has lay dormant for over a century survived bombings and all of WWII, tampered evidence, phonies, innacuracies, and an altogether lack of evidence pile masses of paperwork and theories into this case, one that you'd have to sit on to cram down and close fully. For those that want to discredit Ms. Cornwell entirely, go for it: any great movie or book or story can be disected beyond typical natural occurences, but if you have any inkling or interest in the Ripper case or Sickert himself, this book is very enlightening. The only reason it did not recieve five stars is that it isn't the type of book i would carry around and preach about. The nature of the book is the macabre, morgue-ish account of murders in the East End of London, and if you're not a pessimist or a deadbeat, you'll enjoy Ms. Cornwell's efforts here.

Rating:
Summary: There are better books out there
Review: This book was an interesting read, but unfortunately does not by any means deserve to be the most widely read Ripper book. Her case is circumstantial at best. The problematic mtDNA evidence and links to numerous JtR letters that are undoubtedly frauds and the fact that Sickert may have been in France in September 1888 are all problems that would have to be dealt with much more seriously. I think it was a noble attempt, but her argument ultimately falls short. While it's not totally worthless, it is definitely not "case closed". One would be better served to read Begg's "JtR The Facts", or Sugden's "Complete History". For suspect oriented books, Fido or Evans & Gainey are much more worthwhile.

Rating:
Summary: The case isn't closed, no matter what the title says
Review: While meandering through the library, I picked up a copy of this book. The title interested me, so I checked it out. I was expecting a pretty solid case since the author was claiming the case was closed, but I didn't find that. Instead, a weak circumstantial case was presented, and I was left wondering how the author could have convinced herself that Sickert was Ripper, for she surely didn't convince me.

Ms. Cornwell is very fond of drifting far away from the topic at hand - she starts talking about how the bodies of the prostitutes weren't studied well, and ends up talking about a man who died on a toilet during her career, and she devotes a few pages to "The Elephant Man," Joseph Merrick, who has absolutely no connection with either Sickert or the Ripper except they lived in England during the same time period. Annoyingly enough, Ms. Cornwell pretty much uses "Sickert" and "Jack the Ripper" interchangeably, leaving me wondering how much of the information Cornwell presented about Sickert was factual, and how much was conjecture or something Jack the Ripper did.

Ms. Cornwell may be fond of going off in tangents, but she's even more fond of leaping to conclusions that have little, if any, basis in facts. She knows that Sickert has a "fistula" that required three surgeries when he was a boy. She believes the nephew of Sickert's third wife when he describes what the fistula is (honestly, how much could he have possibly known about Sickert's medical history and problems? That just struck me as odd), and suddenly concludes that Sickert is a deformed psychopath (a word she loves to use, very frequently) who is unable to have relations with a woman, so he must kill and steal parts of prostitutes' organs because he wants to see what had brought his deformed self into this world. Seriously. And that's not the only leaps she made, either.

Ms. Cornwell put much emphasis on the Ripper letters. Most people, including those who were working the investigation as it happened, discounted many of the Ripper letters as fake. Cornwell believes that most of the Ripper letters are not hoaxes, but are mostly written by Jack the Ripper/Sickert. There is no concrete evidence of this, although she does bring in a few experts to claim that she could be right (although other experts would disagree with them). She just asks us to believe her. Even if Sickert HAD written a Ripper letter or two, that wouldn't implicate him. People write fake letters in high-profile cases all the time. Remember the anthrax letter scare in the fall of 2001? People sent fake anthrax letters in the mail. Sure, they had very warped senses of "humor," but come on, that doesn't mean they were responsible for the real letters. In a similar vein, even IF Sickert had sent a Ripper letter in, that didn't make him Jack the Ripper. In Ms. Cornwell's world, though, if Sickert sent in a Ripper letter, he HAD to be the Ripper.

Ms. Cornwell does not make much of an effort to convince the reader that Sickert is really Jack the Ripper. Instead, she pretty much says that Sickert is Jack the Ripper, and spends several chapters trying to determine why Sickert did what he did. The book read like a prosecutor's weak case - it would only take a moderately good defense lawyer to rip the case against Sickert to shreds.

It's obvious that she did a lot of research for this book. I think the book does a pretty good job of painting a realistic, dismal picture of what life was like for the poor living in Victorian London. She even raises a few interesting points about Sickert. Maybe he is Jack the Ripper. Maybe he's not. Who knows? At this point in time, I think it's virtually impossible to close this case. And for Ms. Cornwell to state "Jack the Ripper...is caught" at the end of the book is ludicrous. He's not caught, the case is not closed. To claim otherwise, especially with such a weak circumstantial case, is pure nonsense.