Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History by Tori Telfer

So I have to make a confession: For as feminist as I am, when I think of a serial killer, or really any killer, I think of a man. I'm not the only one who thinks this, it's an extremely common belief. But after this book, I will not make that mistake ever again. I will also know if I'm ever being poisoned with arsenic.

(Source: Kelsey Darling)

Lady Killers focuses on 14 female serial killers, which is what intrigued me. If you can't tell, there's been a theme in my reading lately: killers and psychopaths. But, aside from The Girlfriend (and she didn't kill anyone), they've all been male. So I was really excited to read about these lady killers. This is what I was expecting: a variety of serial killers from different eras that killed in a variety of ways. What I got was women dating back a few centuries who killed using poison. There were a few who tortured their victims, but in the book, the majority used poison, specifically, arsenic (hence knowing if I'm being poisoned with it). As the poison, women are notoriously clean killers; we don't usually stab or shoot someone. Maybe it's because we're conditioned to think that cleanliness is next to godliness, and we know if we make a mess, we're going to be the ones cleaning it up. So, while I understand why most of them used poison, I wish there had been more variety. When it comes the active dates of the killers, Telfer explains this in the conclusion:

"The odds that you will be murdered by a woman in this book, of course, is zero. The choice to keep these lady killers fairly 'vintage' (Nannie Doss is the most recent killer, and she hung around in the 1950s) was largely an aesthetic one; with victims and perpetrators long dead, the stories hopefully err on the side of spooky and mesmerizing rather than simply...depressing." (p. 271)

I'm both grateful and upset about that. I really wanted to read about some modern day truly evil women. But also, I do agree that these stories are more spooky and mesmerizing, and there's enough bad going on in the world currently, so maybe it is best not to read about a modern day evil woman.

(Source: Giphy)

I did notice a theme with the killers. They either were so privileged that they were able to get away with their crimes for much longer than they should have, or they had a really sad life filled with people who definitely deserved some form of punishment (and by that, I mean, imprisoned, not murdered). However, I do feel that that's common among any serial killer, not just females.

The one who terrified me the most is the first one, Erzsébet Báthory. Nicknamed the Blood Countess, Erzsébet was one of the killers who tortured her victims. She was a member of the aristocracy during a time when it was very common to punish your slaves in an extreme manner, however, even she took it too far. She was also married to a man who loved to torture. However, when he died, her torture and the methods she used became even more extreme and began to torture with three other women. Reading about how she would torture the girls either by herself, with her husband, or with her accomplices left me physically sick. Because she is the first killer in the book, it definitely had me questioning if I was going to be able to stomach the rest of the book. 

(Source: Giphy)

What make me sad is this:

"No one knows for sure how many girls Erzsébet Báthory killed. Her four accomplices claimed the number of dead girls fell between 30 and 50-and they'd know best, for obvious reason-while the staff at another one of Erzsébet's castles said she'd killed 175 to 200 girls. The king heard through the grapevine that she'd killed 300, and one young witness claimed the countess had murdered as many as 650 girls and kept their names written in a little ledger." (p. 15)

Even though she was a murderer in the 14th century, it makes me sad that there are families out there that never got closure on what happened to their daughters. 

The book wasn't everything I wanted, but it was definitely interesting. But I might be reading about fake killers for a little bit now.

(Source: Giphy)

Rating: 7/10

Author: Tori Telfer

Genres: Non-fiction, True Crime, History