Portrait of a Killer by Patricia Cornwell

It has been said of Cornwell that no one depicts the human capability for evil better than she. Drawing on unparalleled access to original Ripper evidence, documents, and records, as well as archival, academic, and law-enforcement resources, FBI profilers, and top forensic scientists, Cornwell reveals that Jack the Ripper was none other than a respected painter of his day, an artist now collected by some of the world’s finest museums: Walter Richard Sickert. In Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper, Case Closed, Cornwell combines the rigorous discipline of twenty-first century police investigation with forensic techniques undreamed of during the late Victorian era to solve one of the most infamous and difficult serial murder cases in history. Now Cornwell applies her trademark skills for meticulous research and scientific expertise to dig deeper into the Ripper case than any detective before her-and reveal the true identity of this fabled Victorian killer. But to number-one New York Times bestselling novelist Patricia Cornwell, the Ripper murders are not cute little mysteries to be transformed into parlor games or movies but rather a series of terrible crimes that no one should get away with, even after death. Decades passed, then fifty years, then a hundred, and the Ripper’s bloody sexual crimes became anemic and impotent fodder for puzzles, mystery weekends, crime conventions, and so-called “Ripper Walks” that end with pints of ale in the pubs of Whitechapel. He had struck out of nowhere and then vanished from the scene. And then the Ripper’s violent spree seemingly ended as abruptly as it had begun.

Police seemed powerless to stop the killer, who delighted in taunting them and whose crimes were clearly escalating in violence from victim to victim. An elusive madman calling himself Jack the Ripper was brutally butchering women in the slums of London’s East End.

In the fall of 1888, all of London was held in the grip of unspeakable terror. Now updated with new material that brings the killer's picture into clearer focus.

Portrait of a Killer by Patricia Cornwell