Virtual Event: Dean Jobb

Harvard Book Store's virtual event series welcomes award-winning journalist DEAN JOBB—author of Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation—for a discussion of his latest book, The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream: The Hunt for a Victorian Era Serial Killer. He will be joined in conversation by AMY STEWART, acclaimed author of Wicked Plants and The Drunken Botanist.

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About The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream

”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 a master of the genre.

Praise for The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream

“The story of the infamous poisoner Neill Cream is so many things—horrifying, fascinating, and insightful, a portrait of late 19th-century police work at a time when the idea of the professional detective was just starting to take shape. And in this vivid and compelling book, Dean Jobb does full justice to that story.” —Deborah Blum, New York Times bestselling author of The Poisoner’s Handbook

“A brilliant evocation of an age and a fascinating dissection of a serial killer's crimes. Dean Jobb is a first-rate storyteller and historical detective. A real page-turner.” —Lindsey Fitzharris, author of The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine

“The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream is a macabre, utterly suspenseful true crime thriller about a forgotten madman every bit as cunning and evil as Jack the Ripper. Dean Jobb combines scholarship with a breakneck narrative so relentless it kept me up all night. Warning: Read with the lights on.” —Abbott Kahler, New York Times bestselling author (as Karen Abbott) of The Ghosts of Eden Park