Reviewed by Jeanne
In case you haven’t
gathered it from the title, this is relatively light hearted look at women who
kill. Note that I didn’t say murder,
because a number of these women were warriors, from the Celtic Queen Boudica who
rose up against Rome to Nadeahda Vasiyevna Popva who was a member of the famed
WWII Russian air squadron the “Night Witches” to Freddie Oversteegen who joined
the Resistance at fourteen. Some choices I found understandable but
unexpected: Mary I of England, for
example.
Some of the women are well
known, including Elizabeth Bathory or Lizzie Borden, while others have been
relegated to footnotes in history. The
stories are brief, mostly less than four pages, and the author has a notation
about topics at the beginning of each (Torture; Child Abuse; etc.) in case a
reader is sensitive.
The author doesn’t
dwell on gruesome details, thankfully, but gives a quick overview and does put
the story in historical context. Some of the most horrific stories for me were
the ones involving slaves, especially the section on Delphine LaLaurie. Even her New Orleans neighbors complained
about her cruelty to her slaves, to no avail.
Finally, her starving cook set fire to house, revealing the horrors
within.
Locusta of Gaul was one
I found particularly intriguing. The
author comments, “It’s good to have work that you’re respected for” as this
section opens, before adding, “You should not become a professional
poisoner.” Locusta’s skills with poisons
made her quite popular in some circles in Rome—even in the Emperor’s
household.
It may sound strange but one thing I loved
about the book was its sense of humor. Let me quickly note that the humor is
not at the expense of individual victims.
Mostly, it’s situational as the comments made under the section “Poisoning
Husbands”:
“Truly, it was a scary
time for men in England. Not only were
women pushing for better workplace conditions, and beginning to suggest they’d
like to vote, now men feared their wives were going to poison them, largely for
being awful.” The paragraph goes on to point out that in the 1850s, women were
considered more or less the property of their husband. He had control of property, money, and any
children. In the words of the old
folksong:
Hard is the fortune of all womankind
She’s always controlled, she’s always
confined.
Controlled by her parents, until she’s
a wife—
A slave to her husband for the rest of
her life.
Widowhood was one of
the few ways a woman could become independent.
This isn’t to say that
the author condones the practice of poisoning husbands, she merely puts it in
context as to why it became so much a political issue that the House of Lords
accepted an amendment to make the sale of arsenic to women illegal.
Cult leaders, pirate
queens, saloon owners, warriors, and vigilantes roam these pages, and I enjoyed
reading about them all.
