An award-winning author and journalist transports readers to the late nineteenth century, tracing the Dr. Cream’s life – a man who murdered for the sake of murder, against a backdrop of flawed detection methods, bungled investigations, corrupt officials and stifling morality of Victorian society. 40,000 first printing. Illustrations. - (Baker & Taylor)

"Framed around one salacious trial in 1891 London, a fascinating and vividly told true-crime narrative about the hunt for one of the first known serial killers, whose poisoning spree in the US, Canada, and England coincided with the birth of forensic science as well as the public's growing appetite for crime fiction such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes novels"-- - (Baker & Taylor)

A true crime page-turner about a Victorian doctor, a serial killer ahead of his time, using poison for an international murder spree that kept ahead of the burgeoning field of forensics. “A tour de force of storytelling.” —Louise Penny, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Chief Inspector Gamache series

Winner of the 2022 CrimeCon True Crime Book of the Year? Award  
 
Longlisted for the American Library Association’s Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence

Don't miss Dean Jobb's A Gentleman and a Thief: The Daring Jewel Heists of a Jazz Age Rogue, coming June 25, 2024!

”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.

“Jobb’s excellent storytelling makes the book a pleasure to read.” —The New York Times Book Review
- (Grand Central Pub)

“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. - (Workman Press.)

Library Journal Reviews

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