Publisher Description

From New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell comes Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert, a comprehensive and intriguing expose of one of the world's most chilling cases of serial murder-and the police force that failed to solve it. Vain and charismatic Walter Sickert made a name for himself as a painter in Victorian London. But the ghoulish nature of his art-as well as extensive evidence-points to another name, one that's left its bloody mark on the pages of history: Jack the Ripper. Cornwell has collected never-before-seen archival material-including a rare mortuary photo, personal correspondence and a will with a mysterious autopsy clause-and applied cutting-edge forensic science to open an old crime to new scrutiny. Incorporating material from Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper-Case Closed, this new edition has been revised and expanded to include eight new chapters.

Author Biography

Patricia Cornwell was born in Florida and raised in North Carolina. She sold her first novel, Postmortem, while working as a computer analyst at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond, Virginia. Postmortem was her first bona fide forensic thriller, and it would go on to win the Edgar, Creasey, Anthony and Macavity awards as well as the French Prix du roman d'aventures. Since then, she's authored twenty-nine New York Times bestsellers and won the Sherlock Award, the Gold Dagger Award, the RBA Thriller Award and the Medal of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters for her contributions to literary and artistic development. To date, Cornwell's books have sold over 100 million copies in 36 languages in over 120 countries. She now lives in Boston, where she tirelessly researches advanced forensic techniques to include in her work.

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