3 Review(s)

Serial poisoners, crimes of passion, brutal slayings and infanticide; this new book examines the stories and subsequent trials behind the most infamous cases of British female killers between the early part of the nineteenth century and the 1950s. Among the cases featured here is that of Sarah Dazley, hanged in 1843 for poisoning her second husband; Mary Ann Cotton, who murdered up to twenty-one people, including many members of her own family; Amelia Dyer, the 'baby farmer' who murdered countless numbers of children; Susan Newell, who murdered her newspaper boy; the execution, in 1923 of Edith Thompson for the murder of her husband, a crime she swore she knew nothing about; and, Ruth Ellis, who gunned down her boyfriend outside the Magdala Tavern in 1955, the last woman to lawfully hang in Britain. Retired police detective Paul Heslop has carefully and objectively analysed each of these prominent British cases. His narrative includes post-trial material as well as the executions of the offenders. Finally, he offers his 'verdict', taking into account all the circumstances so that there are times when justice itself is put on trial.