Portrait of a Killer

A New York Times Bestseller Between August and November 1888, at least seven women were murdered in London's Whitechapel district. The gruesome nature of their deaths caused panic and fear in the East End for months, and gave rise to the sobriquet that was to become shorthand for a serial killer -- Jack the Ripper. For over a hundred years the murders have remained among the world's greatest unsolved crimes, and a wealth of theories have been posited which have pointed the finger at royalty, a barber, a doctor, a woman and an artist. By applying her formidable range of forensic and technical skills, Patricia Cornwell presents us with the hard evidence that the perpetrator was the world-famous artist Walter Sickert. Using techniques unknown in the late-Victorian age, Cornwell exposes Sickert as the author of the infamous Ripper letters. She also examines how his birth defects, genital surgical interventions, and their effects on his upbringing become a casebook example of how a psychopathic killer is created.