Portrait of a Killer. Jack the Ripper Case Closed

Pocketbok. Time Warner Paperbacks. 2003. 484 sidor.

Nyskick. In this headline-making new work, Cornwell turns her trademark skills for meticulous research and scientific expertise on one of the most chilling cases of serial murder in the history of crime-the slayings of Jack the Ripper that terrorized 1880s London.
Using the firsthand expertise she has gained through writing the bestselling Dr Kay Scarpetta novels, Patricia Cornwell has used the demanding methods of modern forensic investigation to re-examine the contemporaneous evidence in the Jack the Ripper murders. These include state-of-the-art DNA testing on various materials, computer enhancement of watermarks and expert examinations of hand-writing, paper, inks and other relics. She has also used her knowledge of profiling on the possible suspects, as well as consulting experts in the field. On presenting her conclusions to a very senior Metropolitan Police officer she learned that had the investigators of the time been presented with the facts she has unearthed her suspect would definitely have been arrested and would probably have faced trial. In the first edition of this book Patricia Cornwell named the killer as the artist, Walter Sickert. This paperback includes even more evidence for her compelling and credible conclusion.
Walter Richard Sickert, född 31 maj 1860 i München, Tyskland, död 22 januari 1942 i Bath, England; brittisk konstnär (impressionist).

Hans far var en dansk-tysk konstnär och hans mor engelska; familjen flyttade till London 1868. Sickert studerade konst vid Slade School.

Sickert är mest känd för sina målningar från brittiska varietéteatrar, som visar att han var starkt influerad av Edgar Degas. Han målade även porträtt och stadsmotiv från London och Venedig. Hans målningar präglas av subtilitet i ton och ljus, ofta med ett melankoliskt drag.

Bland hans mest kända målningar märks La Hollandaise (1906) samt Ennui; den senare från cirka 1913; (Tate Gallery, London).

Sickert grundade 1911 Camden Town Group i norra London.

På senare år har det framkommit misstankar om att Sickert skulle ha varit seriemördaren Jack Uppskäraren (Jack the Ripper), en teori som bland annat omnämns i Patricia Cornwells roman Portrait of a Killer - Jack the Ripper, Case Closed (2003).