The Case Of The Murderous Dr Cream

The chilling true-crime story of the Victorian era’s deadliest doctor “When a doctor does go wrong, he is the first of criminals,” Sherlock Holmes observed during one of his most puzzling murder investigations. Incredibly, at the time the words of the world’s most famous fictional detective appeared in print in the Strand Magazine, a real-life Canadian doctor was stalking and murdering women in London’s downtrodden Lambeth neighbourhood. Dr. Thomas Neill Cream had been a suspect in the deaths of two women in Canada, and had killed as many as four people in Chicago before he arrived in London in 1891 and began using pills laced with strychnine to kill prostitutes. The Lambeth Poisoner, as he was dubbed in the press, became one of the most prolific serial killers in history. In this fascinating book, Dean Jobb reveals how bungled investigations, corrupt officials and failed prosecutions allowed Cream to evade detection or freed him to kill, again and again. The first complete account of Dr. Cream’s crimes and his many victims explores how the stifling morality and hypocrisy of the Victorian era allowed this monster to poison vulnerable and desperate women, many of whom had turned to him for medical help. It offers an inside account of Scotland Yard’s desperate search for a killer as brazen and efficient as Jack the Ripper.

“A tour de force of storytelling.” —Louise Penny, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Chief Inspector Gamache series “Jobb’s excellent storytelling makes the book a pleasure to read.” —The New York Times Book Review ”When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of criminals,” Sherlock Holmes observed during one of his most baffling investigations. “He has nerve and he has knowledge.” In the span of fifteen years, Dr. Thomas Neill Cream murdered as many as ten people in the United States, Britain, and Canada, a death toll with almost no precedent. Poison was his weapon of choice. Largely forgotten today, this villain was as brazen as the notorious Jack the Ripper. Structured around the doctor’s London murder trial in 1892, when he was finally brought to justice, The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream exposes the blind trust given to medical practitioners, as well as the flawed detection methods, bungled investigations, corrupt officials, and stifling morality of Victorian society that allowed Dr. Cream to prey on vulnerable and desperate women, many of whom had turned to him for medical help. Dean Jobb transports readers to the late nineteenth century as Scotland Yard traces Dr. Cream’s life through Canada and Chicago and finally to London, where new investigative tools called forensics were just coming into use, even as most police departments still scoffed at using science to solve crimes. But then, most investigators could hardly imagine that serial killers existed—the term was unknown. As the Chicago Tribune wrote, Dr. Cream’s crimes marked the emergence of a new breed of killer: one who operated without motive or remorse, who “murdered simply for the sake of murder.” For fans of Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City, all things Sherlock Holmes, or the podcast My Favorite Murder, The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream is an unforgettable true crime story from a master of the genre.

McLaren develops a historiographical survey on Victorian attitudes toward sexuality and morality, and their relation to violence as he describes the story of Dr. Thomas Cream. Cream murdered prostitutes and women seeking abortions in England and North America between 1877 and 1892.

In the tradition of bestselling books like The Devil in the White City and The Man in the Rockefeller Suit, Empire of Deception combines investigative journalism and captivating storytelling to examine one of the greatest con men of the twentieth century It was a time of unregulated madness. And nowhere was it more mad than in Chicago at the dawn of the Roaring Twenties. Speakeasies thrived, gang war shootings announced Al Capone's rise to underworld domination, Chicago's corrupt political leaders fraternized with gangsters and the frenzy of stock market gambling was rampant. Enter a slick, smooth-talking, charismatic lawyer named Leo Koretz, who enticed hundreds of people to invest as much as $30 million—upwards of $400 million today—in phantom timberland and non-existent oil wells in Panama. When Leo's scheme finally collapsed in 1923, he vanished, and the Chicago state's attorney, a man whose lust for power equalled Leo's own lust for money, began an international manhunt that lasted almost a year. When finally apprehended, Leo was living a life of luxury in Nova Scotia under the assumed identity of a book dealer and literary critic. His mysterious death in a Chicago prison topped anything in his almost-too-bizarre-to-believe life. Empire of Deception is not only an incredibly rich and detailed account of a man and an era; it is a fascinating look at the methods of swindlers throughout history. Leo Koretz was the Bernie Madoff of his day, and Dean Jobb shows us that the dream of easy wealth is a timeless commodity.

The gripping, true story of a brutal serial killer who unleashed his own reign of terror in Nazi-Occupied Paris. As decapitated heads and dismembered body parts surfaced in the Seine, Commissaire Georges-Victor Massu, head of the Brigade Criminelle, was tasked with tracking down the elusive murderer in a twilight world of Gestapo, gangsters, resistance fighters, pimps, prostitutes, spies, and other shadowy figures of the Parisian underworld. But while trying to solve the many mysteries of the case, Massu would unravel a plot of unspeakable deviousness. The main suspect, Dr. Marcel Petiot, was a handsome, charming physician with remarkable charisma. He was the “People’s Doctor,” known for his many acts of kindness and generosity, not least in providing free medical care for the poor. Petiot, however, would soon be charged with twenty-seven murders, though authorities suspected the total was considerably higher, perhaps even as many as 150. Petiot's trial quickly became a circus. Attempting to try all twenty-seven cases at once, the prosecution stumbled in its marathon cross-examinations, and Petiot, enjoying the spotlight, responded with astonishing ease. Soon, despite a team of prosecuting attorneys, dozens of witnesses, and over one ton of evidence, Petiot’s brilliance and wit threatened to win the day. Drawing extensively on many new sources, including the massive, classified French police file on Dr. Petiot, Death in the City of Light is a brilliant evocation of Nazi-Occupied Paris and a harrowing exploration of murder, betrayal, and evil of staggering proportions.

The true story of the seemingly respectable woman convicted of a murderous spree in Victorian-era Brighton, England. In 1871, when the news broke of a series of mysterious poisonings in the popular resort town of Brighton, shock and horror gripped the public. Even more disturbing was the revelation that the culprit was not a common criminal but a local “lady of fortune,” Christiana Edmunds. Starting in March, Christiana had sent out dozens of poisoned chocolates and sweets to Brighton’s residents. Her campaign resulted in the death of four-year-old vacationer Sidney Barker, and wounded countless others. Her arrest in August provoked such an emotional response from the local public that her trial was moved from Brighton to London’s Old Bailey. The prosecution anticipated an easy victory. Christiana had not confessed, but witnesses confirmed she had purchased strychnine and their testimonies placed her at the scenes of the crimes. She had a motive too, argued the prosecution; she was a scorned woman. Despite the defense’s best efforts, the jury took only one hour to convict her of the murder of Sidney Barker and the attempted murder of three others. This book tells the engrossing story of the crime, the trial, the darker underworld of Victorian Brighton, and the ultimate fate of Christiana Edmunds.

The story of a former FBI undercover task force officer who spent years penetrating New Jersey's DeCavalcante crime family, the criminal organization known to law enforcement as "the real Sopranos" Giovanni's Ring is the story of "Giovanni Rocco," a New Jersey police officer, known undercover as "Giovanni Gatto," who was the mysterious agent at the epicenter of Operation Charlie Horse, a federal undercover operation that ultimately brought down ten members and associates of New Jersey's DeCavalcante Mafia family, the criminal organization known as "the real Sopranos." Giovanni spent nearly three years working his way into the DeCavalcante hierarchy. That lethal assignment brought the undercover operation to an end in March 2015, and the resulting string of high-profile arrests eviscerated the criminal organization. ?Giovanni's Ring is not simply a chronicle of Giovanni Rocco's adventures in the murky and dangerous Mafia world he inhabited, but also a fascinating window into the psychological struggles that such a life inevitably entails.

CHASING THE DEVIL is the gripping firsthand account of Sheriff David Reichert's relentless pursuit of the Green River Killer--a 21-year odyssey full of near-misses and startling revelations. For eight years, Sheriff David Reichert devoted his days and nights to capturing the Green River Killer. He was the first detective on the case in 1982, doggedly pursuing clues as the body count climbed to 49 and it became the most infamous unsolved case in the nation. Frantically following all of his leads, Sheriff Reichert befriended the victims families, publicly challenged the killer, and risked his own safety--and the endurance and love of his family--before he found his madman. But Reichert's hunt didn't end when he finally cornered a truck painter named Gary Ridgway. It would be yet another 11 haunting years before forensic science could prove Ridgway's guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt. Told in vivid detail by the man who knows the whole story, this is a real life suspense story of unparalleled heroism.