Book Notes: Dean Jobb on Dr Cream

There's a great review in the New York Times of the veteran Halifax writer Dean Jobb's new book The Case Of The Murderous Dr. Cream: The Hunt for a Victorian Era Serial Killer, about the Canadian obstetrician who just seemed to like murdering women. W.M. Akers writes:

Jobb’s excellent storytelling makes the book a pleasure to read. He evokes the “plank sidewalks and muddy streets” of London, Ontario, as skillfully as he does the “netherworld of flickering gaslight and sinister fog” of London, England. Judicious shifts in time period, from Cream’s early murders in the United States to his later spree in London, keep the narrative moving, while carefully chosen digressions into the histories of poison, surgery and law enforcement provide much needed breaks from the doctor. 

It's a HarperCollins book in Canada (where the only review I have seen is a not very enthusiastic one in Quill and Quire), but it is the edition published in the United States by Algonquin Books, which has a well regarded nonfiction list, that has been drawing American attention.

Update, July 28.  Dean Jobb sez:

Thanks for the shout-out about my book on Dr. Cream! One of my MFA students sent it along.

 FYI, in Canada there were positive reviews in the Toronto Star, Winnipeg Free Press, Saltwire (the Halifax Chronicle Herald) the Quebec City Chronicle-Telegraph, the website Truecrimeindex and Zoomer Magazine. 

See my website for details: https://www.deanjobb.com/the-murderous-doctor-cream 

History of murder

Mark Reynolds draws our attention to the Canadian murder story in a book by American writer Bill James, best known as the baseball statistician and inventor of "sabermetrics." James speculates that among the possible victims of the early 20th century serial killer who is the subject of his book was a family of four killed in February 1906 in the coal-mining community of Old Bridgeport, Cape Breton Island.

 James notes lots of gory similarities, but is not entirely convinced of the identification, since his killer, Paul Mueller, did not like cold weather (!) and because Nova Scotia was a long way away (Very American ideas about Canada, no?) The case was never solved, but the victims were bludgeoned with an axe while sleeping and then had their home burned down around them -- which was pretty much the standard Mueller method.

The CBC story on the unsolved murder also points out that the Nova Scotian detective and future Halifax police chief who unsuccessfully investigated the case has his own biography. but not an admiring one. Nova Scotia writer Bob Gordon makes the case that Nic Power would charge anyone with anything so long as it got good press coverage. His book, with the telling title The Bad Detective: The True Story of a Victorian Sleuth, will be available in May.  

Whither the history website

This new-ish website on the history of crime and punishment in New Brunswick by University of New Brunswick historian Greg Marquis and St. Thomas University criminologist Michael Boudreau came across my radar recently.

I love it. Legal history, and on the web. Just my cup of java.

Now I will say that Professors Marquis and Boudreau should probably not quit their day jobs to become professional web designers. But definitely solid, well-researched history gussied up with great illustrations (including photos like this oneof a spiral staircase in the St. John County Courthouse by Greg Marquis.) Fascinating case histories and well written syntheses on various topics related to the main theme of crime and punishment.

But I found it puzzling in some respects. Not a lot of meta-information about the project, for instance. I found myself wondering...who is this website for? The information is presented in a literate, sophisticated fashion, relying on the intrinsic interesting-ness of the subject to keep the reader engaged rather than the morbid sensationalism to which crime stories, however historical, tend to lend themselves. A useful general bibliography. But inconsistent footnoting, and no links to or reproductions of primary sources, except for illustrative purposes.

So what is it? It's a bit high brow and lengthy for public history, too 'secondary' to be a terribly useful teaching tool for high school or undergraduate students. Most of the linked entries are anonymous; some items, credited to Michael Boudreau, are more conventionally scholarly, as they include endnotes, but are stipulated not for citation without permission. So not as scholar-friendly as it might be, either.