Author denies 'Ripper' obsession

[emad]

Crime author Patricia Cornwell has taken out full-page ads in two national newspapers to deny she is obsessed with Jack the Ripper.

Cornwell claimed artist Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper in a book in 2002. Ripper experts rejected that theory.

In Saturday's Guardian and Independent, Cornwell stands by her claim and calls on others to disprove it.

The ads are thought to have cost more than £10,000 each. An updated edition of her book will appear next year.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4190572.stm

[emad]

1. If she's that confident, why the bluff and double bluff in the papers?

Sounds like some unreported and/or missing documentary evidence may be available that could detract from Cornwell's earning powers with that second tome.

[MADem]

2. She wants to sell more books, of course n/t

[China_cat]

6. She needs to do something to sell more

Because her last 2 were horrible, disjointed, unresolved wastes of paper. I don't understand how the last one got by a blind, deaf copy editor.

[MADem]

10. I understand that she can be quite formidable

Perhaps she bullied, and having been successful in the past, was able to push and shove her way to print. Of course, even with the best writers, it is a bit like baseball...three strikes and she's out!

[Kicked in the Taco]

3. two £10,000+ ads?

Way to prove you don't have an obsession...

[non sociopath skin]

4. Is it OK to point out that I couldn't give a toss about her obsessions ..

... or what she chooses to spend her spondoolicks on?

The Skin

[T_i_B]

15. Well I agree totally with you on this

so I presume it is.

If people want to get their knickers in a twist about RW fiction then they can read the Flashman books by George McDonald Fraser.

[LeftishBrit]

5. Saw it in the "Guardian" today.

How bizarre. I wonder if she's really doing this in the hope of getting some advance publicity for her next book.

[...of J.Temperance]

7. Personally I've always thought that Jack The Ripper was EITHER

Sir William Gull (Queen Victoria's personal physician) or this bloke called Francis Tumblety, who I think was an Irish-American living in the East End at the time.

Not that I'm an expert, I've just watched a couple of interesting documentaries...we could start a guessing game: "Who was Jack The Ripper?"

Patricia Cornwell is a Right-Wing extreme fanatic, so who cares what she does.

I'm under-the-weather today, so lets be gentle.

[emad]

8. Lie back and think of England! or at least England thrashing the

Ozzies in rent Bridge...

[...of J.Temperance]

13. You're right of course!

Lets leave the complicated stuff.

[pretzel4gore]

9. cornwell's a rightwing stooge....

mygod, don't those brit schools turn out anything else? 'jack the ripper' was an upper class twit named montague john druitt, who committed suicide 2 weeks after the kelly murder...his family brought him to the police attention, out of horror at their suspicions, but the (upper class twit-run) police firstly look out for the class interests of the upper class twittery, and it wouldn't do to have the bottom feeder (saucy jack) to be a public schoolboy...
sickert lived until 1930's or something, while jack the ripper was palpably insane by the time he tore ms kelly apart with his teeth (1888)....
cornwell! what a waste of food and water and ex-lax. it doesn't matter to this reactionary jackass who the ripper was: getting her bread buttered (and by the 5 doomed creatures who jack murdered) just makes her day delish. Of course, she'll never tell that 'scotland yard' knew perfectly well who jack the ripper was in 1888 but kept it hidden for political reasons, crass and dreary as those reasons are....walter sickert wasn't the only bug who tried to make people deduce that he was jack (during the period jack was doing his 'work' there were a dozen murdered corpses found in the area that were proven to have nothing to do with the ripper. Gives some indication of how tragic life really was) but because upper class twits controlled the newsmedia in those times (still?) and publishing etc, we today get only glimpses of the reality that went down....example: captain bligh and fletcher christian reputedly had a gay relationship that, while it changes little in the end of the 'mutiny on the bounty' (1796) saga, still ....it's dishonest and hypocritical to leave that out...and cornwell would prefer to kill you before she'd tell the truth about it

[MADem]

11. Huh? I thought she was gay

Not that there aren't the odd Lesbians for Bush (no pun intended, I was thinking of Mary Cheney) but that really isn't the norm.

Of course, with some, money (and hanging on to as much of it as one can, as though by possessing it one can forestall old age and death) can trump conscience....

[pretzel4gore]

12. possibly..i mean women are gorgeous

it's just that cornwell (and too many rightwing pundits/writers/commentators etc) lie routinely, as if truth maybe too awful for the people (and why can't the people decide that?) btw there's absolutely nothing wrong with being rightwing (90 percent of rightwing ideas are true anyway) it's just cornwell casually overlooks anything that make difficult her pitch....the old cliche about 'truth getting boots on while the lie halfway to texas' is so true

[moggie]

14. Shouldn't a crime writer understand the nature of proof?

"Cornwell stands by her claim and calls on others to disprove it". Don't the words "presumption of innocence" and "beyond reasonable doubt" mean anything? The advert says "while I do believe that Jack the Ripper was the artist Walter Sickert, I think the case is far from closed", yet her 2002 book was called "Portrait of a Killer, Jack the Ripper: Case Closed". Maybe the revised edition she's promoting will be called "Oops, Case Really Closed This Time".

What a kook.