A Prescription for Murder: The Victorian Serial Killings of Dr. Thomas Neill Cream

This perspective study by a professor of history at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, is less a true-crime story than a sociological analysis. Cream, imprisoned for murder in the U.S., emigrated to England on his release and there fatally poisoned at least four prostitutes in 1891 and 1892 with strychnine, for which he was hanged. McLaren views Cream as partly a madman and partly a product of the culture of his day, a society in which independent women began to demand rights. Their rebellion changed attitudes toward abortion and prostitution, but above all increased feelings of misogyny. The book provides a searching look at a murderer, London society of the 1890s, the demimonde and the police. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Mar.)