Portrait of a Killer by Patricia D. Cornwell, Patricia Corwnell, 0425192733, Lowest Book Price Finder

Customer Reviews:

2/5 for research & readability but 0/5 for facts !

The skills of the writer and her editors manage to blanche the facts that - before I get lost in the medical ground of the DNA technical report - that she does not even have Sickert's DNA to test ! Not the impression left with every reader who has reviewed elsewhere. Shameless conjecture after shameless conjecture, and if Sickertis demonstrably recorded as being in France at the time of most of the killings this is a mere `alibi'! Hokum.
Finally, Ch 18 p.271 "Her photograph after death may have been the only one taken in her life" is a sentence for which a teacher would chastise a nine year old.

Jack the ripper - Case closed

Fantastic book, I was totally gripped.

Show Me The Money!!!

I cannot but condemn the thesis of this book! The author's forte stems from crime fiction and perhaps this is the field in which she should remain. The source of her research is based, in part, upon the purchase and dissection of some paintings of one of Britain's most interesting yet overlooked artists. The author's experience as an unqualified particpant observer in American mortuaries hardly justifies an extension into the investigation of a historical British case study.

Big-Headed American

It seems to me that the author has succeeded in proving that Walter Sickert, the world-famous artist, was responsible for writing a majority of the Jack The Ripper letters that the police force and newspapers recieved at the time.

What she hasn't - and can't - convinced me of is that he was actually the murderer.
He may have been eccentric, mean-spirited, and slightly disturbed (a look at his art can tell anyone this), but this does not make a killer.

This is a fascinating book, and I do recommend it for anyone intrested in the Jack the Ripper case, but ultimately the mystery will NEVER be solved.

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