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Portrait Of A Killer: Jack The Ripper - Case Closed (2003)

Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper - Case Closed (2003)

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Rating
3.44 of 5 Votes: 4
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ISBN
0425192733 (ISBN13: 9780425192733)
Language
English
Publisher
berkley

About book Portrait Of A Killer: Jack The Ripper - Case Closed (2003)

Disclaimer: I've only read about half so if you're able to give convincing reasons why my rating is absolutely unjustified and the second half will get so much better I will try to read the second half, too. Until then let my just say:Oh what a pile of pretentious crap.I honestly don't know where to start with my rage because while reading there wasn't a single moment where I didn't feel the need to throw this book against a wall.It's probably best to start with the biggest issue, concerning this is supposed to be non-fiction:Cornwell has no facts.No after reading several essays on the identity of Jack the Ripper I can say that she's the only one...but nobody else tries to hide them as badly as she does:Cornwell thinks that The Ripper didn't only kill the five canonical victims, but several more and that the first one wath Martha Tabram. She even admits that there's no proof that Walter Sickert - her suspect of choice - was in London at the time of the murder, and she hasn't really given any good reason why she thinks Sickert must be the Ripper. So the chapter goes like this:Sickert must be the Ripper.Tabram's last hours were like this.Now let me infodump on the role of women in Victorian society.Don't get me wrong: Reading that will make every woman really glad to live in today's world and it's not a bad think that a Ripper-book gives you some background-information...but that should be e.g. in the Introduction. You don't throw it in somewhere in the hope that your readers are so shocked that they forget that you haven't given them any proof on your theory.Cornwell does this over and over and over and over again. We get a history of Scotland Yard (starting 100 years before the Ripper-murders), an explanation how a crime-investigation is done today in the USA (Believe me: I wish I was joking), whining about how much the crime-investigations in the Ripper-murders sucked (yes, especially in the first murders it was done really sloopy...but she's also whining about the fact that they didn't have the forensic science we have today...WTF?), a description of psychopaths...And all that after a few pages in which she throws random speculation without any proper proof at us. (OK, from what I see, Sickert was very likely a misogynistic jerk...still not all misogynistic jerks are serial-killers). It is so bloody obvious that with all that she wants to distract from the lack of facts it hurts.Apart from that I also feel as if I'm being guilt-tripped into believing her theory. She goes on and on about how the victims were real people - which is great, as I recently did complain about the fact that many Ripperologists seem to forget that - but always with the disclaimer 'And don't they deserve justice? Look at me! If you belive me they will get justice!'Sorry but...no. Nobody was ever convicted for the Ripper-crimes and whoever ist was must be dead now, so, no. The victims didn't get justice in the traditional sense...and I honestly doubt that, no matter in what kind of afterlife you chose to believe in, it would make a difference for them if 100 years after the murders somebody has found the actual killer and manages to convince other people of that. So, please don't tell me you're doing that for the victims...you certainly didn't buy a two-page advert in a major newspaper, to promote your theory because you felt so sorry for the victims.Similarily Cornwell tries to make us belive that, yeah she did think about the implications of accusing somebody (though long dead and with no blood-relatives) of murder. So we're treated to that gem in which she's discussing her major doubts with her editor:“I am suddenly in a position of judgment,” I told Esther. “It doesn’t matter if he’s dead. Every now and then this small voice asks me, what if you’re wrong? I would never forgive myself for saying such a thing about somebody, and then finding out I’m wrong.”“But you don’t believe you’re wrong. . . .”“No. Because I’m not,” I said.Honestly? You give us a scene straight from a cheesy B-movie and that should make us believe that you actually gave this some thought? How stupid do you think your readers are?Oh...wait...judging by the rest of the book: really stupid

I cannot claim to be a Ripperologist, but I have read a fair number of books about the Ripper murders and none so arrogant and uninformative as this. Before I say any more, let me just say that I enjoy Patricia Cornwell's novels, she's a good writer, so I am simply unable to decide what on earth made her write this. In the beginning of this book, the author states that she became interested in the Ripper murders on a visit to London and was soon convinced that the artist Walter Sickert was responsible. Having decided on this, she then claims to have solved the murders and sets about, rather unconvincingly, attempting to convince us that this is the case.Alarm bells began to ring when Cornwell states with utter conviction that the Ripper's first victim was Martha Tabram - a fact hotly disputed amongst those who have investigated the Ripper murders. Her total and utter conviction that she is right in everything is rather concerning. She has a rather naive view of Victorian London, is quite insulting about the people who lived there (they may have been poverty stricken, drunk, uneducated, illiterate etc, but no person deserves to be described as "rubbish") and discusses in great depth the way postmortems would currently be carried out now, which is interesting but ultimately irrelevant, as the murders happened so long ago. Bodies found in dark alleyways in the middle of the night and carted off to the nearest poorhouse or shed to be examined are obviously not going to be subject to the same scrutiny or scientific testing they would be now.Now we come on the subject of Sickert - the man Cornwell says categorically was the Ripper. Her evidence is very flimsy. Many of the Ripper letters were written on paper that can be traced to him - if we accept this it says he may have written some letters to the press or police, but the writers of the letters was not necessarily the murderer. Again and again she makes assumptions - about his health, his childhood, his marriage, his whereabouts, his love of disguises and rented rooms where he could work in private, the fact he may or may not have defaced a visitors book at a guest house... Sickert may have been a very odd man - he certainly had an obsession with Jack the Ripper, he claimed to stay in a room the Ripper lived in, he was compulsive, a news addict, a prolific writer, he liked his models to be extremely unnattractive and was certainly attracted to the underlife of the city. Does this him a murderer? I would have preferred to have read a balanced account - this was not it and I remain unconvinced of Cornwell's arguments.

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I started reading Patricia Cornwell's Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper, Case Closed while I was down in Florida, and finally finished it the day before yesterday. I remember reading reviews of the book when it first came out a few years ago, and never picking the book up. I found it by chance in the stacks at my godmother's house, and decided to give it a try.It's not that I'm not interested in Jack the Ripper. When I was in high school, I could be counted on to track down just about any book, movie or comic that was connected in any way to two subjects: King Arthur and Dracula. I remember WARP Graphix releasing the comics mini-series Blood of the Innocent in which Dracula came to England on an advance fact-finding mission several years before the events of the novel and encountered Jack the Ripper. That led me for a while to read up on the Ripper -- novels where Sherlock Holmes meets him, and so on.The problem with this book is that although Cornwell claims that she has solved the case beyond a shadow of a doubt and that The Ripper was noted artist Walter Sickert, her evidence is no more complete or compelling than say, Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's evidence that the Ripper was the royal physician Sir William Gull, or Hempel and Wheatley's evidence that the Ripper was Prince Edward. The problem is: Moore and Campbell's From Hell, on which the movie was based, and Hempel and Wheatley's Blood of the Innocent are admittedly fictional works, however well researched they may have been. The authors admit they are putting words and thoughts into the mouths and minds of historical figures to suit their own theory. Cornwell's book is meant to be non-fiction -- and yet she assigns thoughts and feelings to Walter Sickert that she can only presume he had, since he never left a confession. Yes, the circumstantial evidence is strong -- and in a modern court of law, that might even be enough to convict Sickert for the murders commonly credited to Jack the Ripper, if not the long list of Ripper-like murders in years following that the police did not assign to the Ripper.I had to force myself to finish the book just to see if Cornwell would pull one fully damning piece of evidence out at the end. But the book ends as it starts: with the clear knowledge that this writer of popular crime fiction has let her quest for the Ripper's identity consumer her life professionally and personally, full in the knowledge that at least for the time being, her suspect is no more or less plausible than so many of the others that have been fingered in fiction over the years.
—Anthony

For weeks, I attempted to finish Patricia Cornwell's "Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper, Case Closed" I haven't written a real book review, (or even been inclined to write one,) since High School English Lit., but this book frustrated me enough to write one.I've heard from many people what a wonderful piece of forensic investigation it is, how interesting, and that it seems the most plausible answer to the question of "whodunit."It must be confessed, that though I ordinarily like Patricia Cornwell's style of writing, and find her fiction very entertaining, I could not finish this book. It's just too big a fish tale to swallow. I just cannot finish a book that purports to have "solved" the case "100%" when every page is peppered with phrases such as "may," "could have been," "not saying absolutely," and "it seems likely..."This is not good investigation. This book is full of theories, based on assumptions, based on shaky premises, originating from a supposition that the man who produced such 19th and early 20th century dark and tawdry expressionist works such as the "Camden Town" paintings could actually have been the real killer. It is a theory that very few Ripperologists feel is even worth mentioning, aside from the fact that it has gotten a tremendous amount of media play since its 2002 publication date, even being made into a BBC documentary, (co-produced, naturally, by the heavily-invested, and completely biased Cornwell.)She relies strongly on 100 year old mitochondrial DNA, which, as far as I know, would not hold up well in a true prosecutorial case, especially as it does not particularly do anything more than exclude certain groups of people, thus potentially narrowing the field of suspects who licked stamps and envelopes. The fact is, there is no crime scene DNA known to be from Ripper, with which to compare her envelopes' mtDNA.I agree that Ms. Cornwell's high profile as a compelling crime-fiction writer, generates a predisposition to believe her suppositions. Her manner of "proof," however, throughout her "Portrait of a Killer" pages, begs her reader to agree with her subjective assessment of the psychopathology of Sickert's art as evidence of being the most likely, and indeed unassailable perpetrator of the Ripper serial killings.I don't buy it. It may be that she has a viable theory, but I am turned off completely by the shaky ground on which she builds her theory. She expects us to stipulate so much guesswork, in order to substantiate her case, (which, surely she has not substantiated, as there is very little substantive evidence in her guesses.)In her dedication, she arrogantly tells the Scotland Yard Detective, John Grieve, "you would have caught him." "HIM," I assume, referring to Sickert, as is her premise. Yet, try as I may, I cannot find any evidence that Det. John Grieve concurs with her conclusions. Does she, perhaps, toss his name about to lend credence to her ideas?This book makes me wonder if she decided on a suspect, then focused purely on gathering all the little bits of evidence that could lend credence to her ideas, while eliminating from her work all the bits of evidence that disprove her theories.I do have to give Cornwell this credit though... I had never bothered to look up any information on Jack the Ripper, prior to this book. I knew he was a British serial killer, I had seen parts of "From Hell," and other movies that fictionalize his crimes. Yet I had, (and admittedly still have,) little more a rudimentary knowledge of the case.My final opinion? Buy the book second-hand, and read it like fiction. You may find it entertaining. Then again, you may not. Better yet, I'll lend you my copy. It's only half used.
—Stacey

I admit to having a great interest in the Jack the Ripper case and have for many years. I was interested to see what Cornwell could come up with as to who could have done the killing. I was thoroughly disappointed with this book. It was basically filled with Cornwell's guesses that she put out as facts. What really set me off was that part of the book where she was walking down the street with her editor (I think) and says, "I know who did it." From then on, I had a feeling I wasn't going to enjoy this book so much. I did try to keep an open mind, which is more than I can say for her. She fixated on Walter Seikert and never let go. She just made all these facts from his life just fall inter her theory. It was shoddy investigative work and an example of what not to do in an investigation. I wouldn't suggest anyone to read this book.
—Michelle

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