REVIEW: Lady Killers, by Tori Telfer
Hey everyone!
Let me start with some questions: Are women capable of killing? And if so, would they be able to commit crimes of a greater proportion than Jack the Ripper, for example?
The answer to both questions is a big yes. Not only are women capable of killing, but several women have already committed far more brutal crimes than Jack the Ripper. But would you know how to name one of them? Because honestly, before reading this book, I wouldn't know. And why is that? Darya Nikolayevna Saltykova has been charged with 138 murders for example. Mary Ann Cotton was indicted for 21 crimes, with 3 of the victims being their husbands and another 12, her children.
Telfer quotes:
"Some say that Jack, the Ripper, was the first serial killer in England, but that is only because the others have been forgotten".
The book is not suitable for minors under 18 precisely because it addresses very delicate topics, but even so, the reading flowed in a very pleasant way. Okay, I confess that at certain times I had to take a break to assimilate what I had just read, like women who killed their children in the cruelest ways you can imagine, dismembered the bodies of their victims or put their heads inside a pan (I remember reading a case where the woman made a "soup" with the blood of one of her victims and not only drank it later, but also offered it to her son and the rest of the neighborhood).
The author's writing is very good, and the way she portrays each event in this book is incredible, making us analyze the topic from a different perspective. Many cases of these crimes are not so widely reported, and what people say to justify their crimes are the most absurd, as apparently, they have a hard time believing that women in full conscience can kill. The female sex is still often seen as fragile sex. It is hard to believe that a woman can kill in cold blood.
The women featured in this book killed their victims in several different ways: arsenic, torturing them to death, beheading them, among many others, and their motivations were also the most diverse: a husband who was too strict, money, or simply the pleasure of torturing and killing.
Now, what happened to these women?
Well, some have been sentenced to prison, sent to psychiatric hospitals, or even sentenced to death. Many were sexualized to the point of being released for having "an angelic appearance"
"... blond curls or black eyes seem to have the ability to make judges forget the most overwhelming evidence."
Other women ran away, but some died at the fire pit: they were considered witches and condemned to be burned.
This book not only portrays the lives of several women but also addresses many relevant issues today, such as: "why should women be considered the weaker sex?"
Tori Telfer unites two themes that I love: criminology and feminism. So, if you're a fan of real crime stories, Lady Killers should be your next read.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
(In case you want to research a little more about it, here are some names: Kate Bender, Elizabeth Báthory, Tillie Klimek and Alice Kyteler)
Thanks for reading my review!
Bye, Sarah.
(original photos 📷)