Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History
2017 • 352 pages
Ratings13
Average rating3.8
15
Ratings13
Average rating3.8
Inspired by author Tori Telfer's Jezebel column “Lady Killers,” this thrilling and entertaining compendium investigates female serial killers and their crimes through the ages. When you think of serial killers throughout history, the names that come to mind are ones like Jack the Ripper, John Wayne Gacy, and Ted Bundy. But what about Tillie Klimek, Moulay Hassan, Kate Bender? The narrative we’re comfortable with is the one where women are the victims of violent crime, not the perpetrators. In fact, serial killers are thought to be so universally, overwhelmingly male that in 1998, FBI profiler Roy Hazelwood infamously declared in a homicide conference, “There are no female serial killers.” Lady Killers, based on the popular online series that appeared on Jezebel and The Hairpin, disputes that claim and offers fourteen gruesome examples as evidence. Though largely forgotten by history, female serial killers such as Erzsébet Báthory, Nannie Doss, Mary Ann Cotton, and Darya Nikolayevna Saltykova rival their male counterparts in cunning, cruelty, and appetite for destruction. Each chapter explores the crimes and history of a different subject, and then proceeds to unpack her legacy and her portrayal in the media, as well as the stereotypes and sexist clichés that inevitably surround her. The first book to examine female serial killers through a feminist lens with a witty and dryly humorous tone, Lady Killers dismisses easy explanations (she was hormonal, she did it for love, a man made her do it) and tired tropes (she was a femme fatale, a black widow, a witch), delving into the complex reality of female aggression and predation. Featuring 14 illustrations from Dame Darcy, Lady Killers is a bloodcurdling, insightful, and irresistible journey into the heart of darkness.
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This book was recommended to me through a service I subscribe to. TBR: Tailored Book Recommendations. I quite like the service, and the thoughtful recommendations I've received so far. They're not paying me, I pay them. :)
I was recommended this book because I like true crime, but I prefer it through a feminist lens, and with a huge dose of empathy. This met those preferences.
Here, we meet several female murderers. Poison by far being their favorite method. We explore how being a woman molded their choices, played into the media narratives, made people in some cases less likely to suspect them, and in other cases quick to call them witches.
To some extent, the writing felt a bit clunky, but the author also has this really wicked and dark sense of humor that would pop up and make me laugh.
I enjoyed recapping the stories for my husband, both to keep him in line, and to amuse him. “So, there's this scroll marked confession, and the guy who finds it thinks it's just between the corpse and his God, so he chucks it into the fire. THEN he finds all this poison, and I bet he regretted chucking the scroll into the fire.”
