Chasing the Ripper, by Patricia Cornwell (Kindle Single, 2014)
The Jack the Ripper case was presumed solved in September, with spotty DNA evidence on a garment that may or may not have been connected to one of the crimes and may or may not have been washed since that crime pointing to Aaron Kosminski as the culprit.
Kosminski has been on the list of Ripper suspects for ages. But so have others, and the champions of those various other possible Rippers seem unfazed by the Polish hairdresser’s stepping up in the serial killer sweepstakes.
Patricia Cornwell’s slim “Kindle Single” Chasing the Ripper is a postscript to her massive book Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper—Case Closed, in which she argued that Walter Sickert, the celebrated English artist, was the Ripper.
I want Cornwell to be right. I like the idea of Sickert as the Ripper. I find her arguments on his behalf to be sensational and entertaining. If one is to be obsessive about any murder case, one should at least be entertaining about it. Cornwell’s case is based on artwork and party anecdotes. She has gone the DNA route just as the Kosminski contingent has, but the beauty of Cornwell’s theories are that they are woven into Victorian culture—art, literature, industrialism, celebrity, media frenzy—and not just a worn piece of fabric.
Cornwell uses this opportunity not to tear down the case for Kosminski, or applaud it for that matter. She acknowledges the Kosminski theory then dismisses it offhandedly, then restates her own case for Sickert. She confronts the critics and naysayers who found fault with her book.
The brevity is appreciated. Her thesis is clearer. I still want to believe it. And I want other people to take a shot at articulating this wondrous theory that a great naturalistic and doom-laden British artist was also the country’s most esteemed murderous fiend.