The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream

Starred review from May 24, 2021
Jobb (Empire of Deception) provides the definitive account of serial poisoner Thomas Neill Cream in this enthralling real-life thriller. Born in Scotland in 1850, Cream moved with his family to Montreal, Canada, where he earned his medical degree at McGill University. He became a respected member of his London, Ontario, community, while leading a murderous double life. After the body of a woman with whom Cream was alleged to have had an affair was found near his office in 1879, a victim of chloroform poisoning, he became a suspect and fled to the U.S. In Chicago, he became a person of interest in several deaths and was convicted in 1881 of poisoning a patient. When his life sentence was commuted in 1891, Cream immigrated to England, where his murder of several prostitutes in London with strychnine led to his arrest and execution in 1892. (It was also mooted that he could have been Jack the Ripper, though he was in prison in Illinois at the time of the Ripper killings.) Jobb nicely places this grim story in context, as Cream’s London trial created a precedent for the admission of similar uncharged crimes as evidence and exposed massive Scotland Yard failures that left Cream free to kill more people until he was finally apprehended. Jobb’s extensive research pays off in a true-crime masterpiece that will easily sit alongside The Devil in the White City.

July 1, 2021

Jobb (creative nonfiction, Univ. of King's Coll., Halifax, Nova Scotia; Empire of Deception) profiles the physician Thomas Neill Cream, a serial killer who was a contemporary of Jack the Ripper. Between 1877 and 1892, Cream poisoned victims in Canada, the United States, and England, using strychnine capsules that he created himself. Cream, known as the Lambeth Poisoner, targeted mostly sex workers or women in need of his abortion services, but he was not averse to killing closer to home--his young wife numbered among his victims. Jobb's research is excellent, though his frequent use of quotations can be jarring to the narrative flow. Even after Cream sent detailed blackmail letters trying to shift the blame for the murders to wealthy and influential public figures, and became overly friendly with officials at Scotland Yard, he nevertheless went undiscovered for years due to shoddy police work and misogyny, Jobb argues, because police often dismissed Cream's victims as undeserving of justice. Period photos and reproductions of Cream's letters round out the work. VERDICT Jobb's compelling account of Cream's reign of terror will appeal to readers interested in Jack the Ripper or Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper.--Jessica Hilburn, Benson Memorial Lib., Titusville, PA

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2021
A lively account of an early international serial killer's crimes. In his latest, journalist and creative nonfiction professor Jobb richly embellishes his grim central tale with carefully researched setting, detail, and social mores of the late Victorian era, elegantly contrasted with his eponymous fiend, Thomas Neill Cream (1852-1892), "a doctor from Canada" and "a new kind of killer, choosing victims at random and killing without remorse." Many readers will make comparisons to H.H. Holmes from The Devil in the White City. However, writes Jobb, "by the time Holmes claimed his first victim in 1891, and long before the infamous Jack the Ripper terrorized London in 1888, Cream was suspected of killing as many as six people, most of them deliberately poisoned with tainted medicine." Cream is an unsavory cipher, a foppish, dissolute sociopath masquerading behind the authority of a doctor. His well-to-do family perceived his dangerous tendencies, sending him to England after an 11-year prison sentence for poisoning his alleged mistress's husband in small-town Illinois and following earlier killings in Canada and Chicago for which he'd evaded responsibility. Yet, once back in England, Cream continued his murderous ways, poisoning several prostitutes and sending blackmail letters impugning others for his crimes, a narcissistic tell that later provided evidence for his conviction. Though "the adventures of Holmes and Dr. Watson made detection look easy," in reality, forensic detection was in its infancy. Jobb ably portrays the early investigators who used often derided scientific approaches to bring Cream to justice, including a Scotland Yard detective who traveled to America to piece together Cream's past, "an investigation that would expose more crimes and furnish even more evidence of the doctor's capacity for cruelty and murder." Eventually, Cream was hanged following conviction in a highly publicized trial in London, leaving as his legacy dismay mingled with social reflection. "Four poisonings committed under Scotland Yard's nose...suggested a shocking lack of vigilance." A vivid, engaging revival of a forgotten Victorian villain.

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