The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream

The Hunt for a Victorian Era Serial Killer

By: Dean Jobb

Narrated by: Steven Crossley

Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

“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 listeners 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.

©2021 Dean Jobb (P)2022 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

One of the Most Anticipated Books of 2021

The New York Times Book Review * BuzzFeed * CNN * CrimeReads * Book Riot

One of IndieWire's 10 Best Gifts for True Crime Fans

One of The Washington Post's "50 Notable Works of Nonfiction"

One of CrimeReads' "Best True Crime Books of 2021"

“Jobb’s extensive research pays off in a true crime masterpiece that will easily sit alongside The Devil in the White City.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review

"A deeply absorbing account of the life and deeds of one of the Ripper’s earliest ‘successors’ . . . An admirable piece of work, a model for its kind.” — The Wall Street Journal

“[Dr. Thomas Neill Cream] will hauntingly occupy a space in your nightmares after you read of his life and crimes in The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream. An extraordinarily well-researched and arrestingly written work . . . this is a book that grabs you from its first sentence, weaving a suspenseful tale and taking readers on a grand, if gruesome, historical journey.” —Chicago Tribune

Steven Crossley is an excellent narrator.

thank you Dean Jobb for this book was very interesting listening to while typing and reading.

hard to follow

the chronology kept jumping in places and times with bits of extraneous ramblings on the state of forensics in victims England. I found myself lost many times as the author kept jumping back and forth in the sequences of events.

good history of Victorian crime & medicine; no thrilling or mysterious writing

kinda fell flat as a True Crime story. I didn’t find it chilling or thrilling at all. Was interesting to learn about Victorian crime & medical culture but this read more like a factual textbook than suspenseful true crime

Back and forth in time did not work for me

It was interesting, but really difficult to follow because it jumped around in time. The other issue I didn’t like was I never really understood what motivated him to tell on himself. How unusual is that? It seems really counterproductive. But there just wasn’t that much discussion about, his potential motivations and what drove him to teach Sunday school, kill prostitutes, and make very public pronouncements as though he was a fabulous person. So I never really got a sense of who he was. And that was frustrating.

Great murder detective setting

The author does a fabulous job of pulling together historical events and putting them in a narrative format. The only issues I have is that it is a slow start and very fact intensive. It really lends itself to reading it or listening to it in a couple days, I think. That is what I started doing and the book picked up for me very nicely.

This book about murder stole 10 hours from my life

I read this book because it was recommended by a book club. I really don't understand why the author spent the time to collect all these details about something which could have been summed up in a single paragraph. The narrator was fine and there were a few interesting facts but ultimately this book will be quickly forgotten. I'm disappointed that the book club selected this.

Hard to Follow

The narrator wasn’t bad. Storyline is all over the place and is difficult to follow.