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Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters | 
 enlarge | Author: Peter Vronsky
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 133608
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 496
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.4 x 1.3
ISBN: 0425213900
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.1523
EAN: 9780425213902
ASIN: 0425213900
Publication Date: August 7, 2007
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Product Description
The first book of its kind-photographs included. Mothers, daughters, sisters and grandmothers-fiendish killers all. Society is conditioned to think of murderers and predators as men, but in this fascinating book, Peter Vronsky exposes and investigates the phenomenon of women who kill-and the political, economic, social, and sexual implications. From history's earliest recorded cases of homicidal females to Irma Grese, the Nazi Beast of Belsen, from Britain's notorious child-slayer Myra Hindley to 'Honeymoon Killer' Martha Beck, from the sensational murder-spree of Aileen Wournos, to cult killers, homicidal missionaries, and the sexy femme fatale, Vronsky challenges the ordinary standards of good and evil and defies the accepted perceptions of gender role and identity.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
Thorough and fun to read August 1, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is a good book, covering individuals from the distant past (Messalina, Elizabeth Bathory) to 19th century poisoners, Nazi death camp workers (Irma Grese), moving into recent history (the Manson girls) to modern cases as well (Karla Homolka, Aileen Wuornos). And these women I mentioned are just a few of the many, many case histories and individuals Vronksy explores.
It definitely shows that the author did his research and covers this subject more thoroughly than other books I have read on this subject. I'd definitely recommend it highly to true-crime fans. It reads well and is informative and effective, from stomach-churning transcripts of the Homolka/Bernardo videotapes to theories on why Bathory perhaps did not bathe in the blood of her many victims.
My only criticisms are that the author does focus a lot on Wuornos, as he seems to believe her to be somewhat of an anomaly amongst female murderers in terms of her motives and "style" (for lack of a better word).
Also, he goes after an activist named Phyllis Chesler for her feminist defense of Wuornos in a very aggressive way. He definitely makes some valid points against Chesler's arguments, but there is a vitriol in his words that made me feel he was somehow very personally offended by this woman: calling her a "creature", sarcastically mentioning that "we can all sleep better" knowing that Chesler has moved on to other causes. His almost venomous attack on her stood out to me in a big way while reading.
I definitely recommend this book. Very informative and entertaining.
A Brilliant Book but missing a few notables! December 16, 2007
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
First, I have to say that I am reading this part with great interest. As a true crime reader, I find this book to be quite in-depth but I have some disagreements with the author regarding some notable omissions like Caryl Ann Fugate who was along with Charles Starkweather in the 1950s on a murderous spree. She was only 14 years old at the time. Also, Sante Kimes who was also known to be vicious to her servants/slaves and left a murderous which included her own son, Kenny, as her accomplice leaving bodies across the country and abroad in the Bahamas. I think he devotes a lot of time to Aileen Wuornos who I believed was mentally ill and that was not analyzed properly. I believe she was either bipolar or paranoid schizophrenic regardless she was mentally ill until her death. Female serial killers in this book include all kinds including the kind granny Dorothea Puente, the nurse Genene Jones who is eligible for parole in 2009, mother Marybeth Tinning who suffocated her children for attention was eligible in 2006, and others. Karla HOmolka has been released from prison and I thought her crimes were horrendous. While the author does provide a great deal amount of time analyzing those, I felt that the Manson girls who have been rejected for parole repeatedly are villified beyond redemption and will never be released in the first place despite the fact that they have all changed behind prison. I don't think of the Manson girls as serial killers much less as followers as Manson much like the girls who went on sprees with their husbands, lovers, partners, etc. I'm still reading the book slowly to absorb the knowledge. I study true crime but I have no aspiration to do any harm to anybody else. This book is good but not excellent, I would have liked the author to have analyzed Santee Kimes.
 Awesome new book on female serial killers! October 14, 2007
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
The issue of feminism is only a very small part of this book: a few pages in a couple of chapters from nearly 500 pages of everything else about female serial killers! A fascinating, compelling and heavily researched study of the history, psychology, culture and sociology of female serial killers, along with some detailed case histories to back it up. The book is an excellent companion to his book on males--Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters. What I enjoy most about his books are the case studies which provide much more detailed descriptions than other general books on serial murder. There are about twenty extensive accounts of various types of female serial killers many of which go way beyond the short encyclopedic treatments so often published. I also like the way the author structures his books into several parts: history, psychology, and then case studies. You do not need to read the book from beginning to end, but can often open it at any chapter, reading it in almost any order, like a magazine. His books are more like a collection of complete articles and case studies, linked together by the common theme of serial homicide. Read together they paint a big picture of female predators. Like a smart True Detective magazine - a 'vanity fair' of true crime, women and serial homicide. Very enjoyable and readable style with a subtle edge of black humor behind it. Maybe the best new stuff written on Charlie Manson and his girls. And his take on Aileen Wuornos made me cry: it was heart-breaking true to her--a shot right between her angels and the devil. Bright new talented true crime author and a scholar too. Frightening no punches-pulled accounts of sequential female predatory aggression in all its many lipstick shades.
Great book October 9, 2007
14 out of 16 found this review helpful
Fantastic insight into the interplay of politics, publicity, and the PERCEPTION of female serial killers. An excellent slap at extremist feminist political portrayal of women serial murderers as "victims" with a balanced critique of this distortion. All in all, a completely unique portrayal of what could merely be sensationalist bunk. Very scholarly. Recommended for the reader who wants facts, not rumor.
Excellent book--highly recommend it! September 11, 2007
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
Radical feminists who insist that only men commit serial murder will be angered by this book, which lists the names of 140 predatory female serial killers and offers case studies of varying detail for some 40 of them. Vronsky is highly critical of radical feminism, which argues that when women kill they do so only to defend themselves against male aggression. He very persuasively argues that many female serial killers kill for the very same reasons that male serial killers do--but that they leave different signatures at the crime scene.
If you liked Vronsky's book extensively reseached book on male serial killers, then you'll love this one. Vronsky writes in his usual biting sarcastic style but his treatment is very intelligent and informative and he never "writes down" to his readers while covering some pretty dense historical and psychological material in a jargon-free style. His comparisons of female with male serial killers give you not only new insight into the female perpetrator but make you re-think what male serial killers are all about.
Vronsky breaks down a lot of myths about female serial killers pointing out that over half of them have killed at least one female themselves and 39 percent at least one child and that strangers--not husbands, lovers or family members--are marginally the most preferred category of victim for female serial killers today. Vronsky points out that female serial killers are much better at it than male ones, eluding apprehension for twice as long a time on average than males and that the frequency of female serial killers appears to be doubling every two decades. According to the statistics he provides, 1 in nearly every 6 serial killers in the USA is a female. That's quite the shocker and the case studies in this book easily sustain that.
Excellent book with no parallel on the psychology, history, and gender-politics of female serial killing with a fascinating chapter on female accomplices of male sexual serial killers.
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