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Thomas Neill Cream, a doctor from Canada, gained release from Joliet prison in the summer of 1891. Cream left the states to practice his trade in London, where no one knew him or of his dark and murderous past. Cream’s license earned him faith and trust that he most certainly did not deserve. “When a doctor goes wrong, he is the first of criminals,” according to Sherlock Holmes, well-known fictional detective who was just being introduced during the time Cream was practicing his skills.

Cream chose his victims at random, which was something that was not before seen. He showed no remorse. The Chicago Daily Tribune declared he killed “simply for the sake of murder.” By the time H.H. Holmes, a doctor considered to be one of America’s first serial killers, claimed his first victim in 1891 and years before the infamous Jack the Ripper’s rampage, Cream was already suspected of killing at least 6 people. The last of those killings led to his stay in Joliet. During a time before the Internet would have news traveling internationally of killings and crime, Cream was able to relocate and start fresh. But he didn’t stop killing. His credentials and professional status, lack of communication between jail and police settings, and bungled investigations allowed Cream to continue his grisly hobby for many years.

Dean Jobb takes the reader through cases on an individual basis, transporting readers to the late nineteenth century, when Scotland Yard traced Dr. Cream’s life through Canada and Chicago and finally to London, where new investigative tools called forensics were just coming into use. One young woman whose circumstances led her to prostitution, became Cream’s first victim in his new life. Not many would care about justice for women who would not be missed.

Cream was a serial killer, one of the most ruthless and prolific in history, in a time when the term was unknown. Over the course of fifteen years, Dr. Thomas Neill Cream murdered as many as ten people in the United States, Britain, and Canada, a murder count with almost no precedent. Poison was his weapon of choice. As bold and terrifying as the notorious Jack the Ripper, Cream, a pillar of his church and respected doctor with trusted credentials, became known as the Lambeth Poisoner.