Scan barcode
janagaton's review against another edition
3.0
super redundant but the crime story itself was riveting, and belle gunness seemed like an extremely smart woman. just the way this book was written wasn't compelling.
rebelkiss's review against another edition
2.0
The title is misleading. Sure, it seems to focus on the female serial killer. But it goes off on tangents that really didn’t add anything to the story. Then half of the book is about the trial of a man involved with the ‘princess.’ After finishing this book, I promptly made sure I did t have any other book by this author on my tbr. One character is repeatedly referred to by a racial slur. It added nothing to the story AT ALL. Yet he kept mentioning it. So many characters that were talked about that didn’t have anything to do with the main character
alexrobinsonsupergenius's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder
marieintheraw's review against another edition
3.0
The beginning is super engaging; however, by the end it becomes more about the speculation of what could have been.
badseedgirl's review against another edition
4.0
This book is available on Kindle Unlimited and Audible for free.
I found this book to be very interesting and informative. There has been a lot of criticism of the authors use of misogynistic and racist descriptions of the people involved in story. My impression after finishing the book was that the author was describing the people as they were described by their contemporaries. I liked the fact that the author did not try and foist his beliefs as to the characters in this very convoluted tale of murder.
I found this book to be very interesting and informative. There has been a lot of criticism of the authors use of misogynistic and racist descriptions of the people involved in story. My impression after finishing the book was that the author was describing the people as they were described by their contemporaries. I liked the fact that the author did not try and foist his beliefs as to the characters in this very convoluted tale of murder.
caitshanly's review against another edition
2.0
I think a more accurate title for this book and the majority of its content would be: “Murder Investigations and Legal Proceedings in the Early 1900s: The Trial of Ray Lamphere.” Not what I wanted to hear about when I picked up a book about a “butcher of men.” The tale of Belle and her transition into a serial murderer was interesting, but I felt that that was only briefly covered and only in the first third of the book.
melissa_who_reads's review against another edition
3.0
Belle Gunness was a Norwegian woman who immigrated to America, settling in Chicago first and then on a farm in LaPorte, Indiana. When her farm house burned down in 1908, they discovered a grisly garden of corpses - she had been writing to lonely Norwegian men, enticing them to her farm, robbing them, and killing them - and not only poisoning them, but also butchering their bodies, and burying the pieces in multiple places on her farm. The question remains: did she set the house fire? Was her body the woman's body found in the cellar with the three children? The head was missing, looking as if it was one of her victims who had been butchered ... did she survive the fire? Did her handyman, convicted of arson, set the fire, or was he her scapegoat?
It's a fascinating story of a woman who was certainly complex psychologically. One wishes one of the children she raised had survived to tell their stories. Schechter tells the story well, though occasionally it gets bogged down in the florid language of the period (he quotes from contemporary newspapers frequently). Sadly, there are no answers to what really happened: the evidence remains as much of a mystery today as it was then.
It's a fascinating story of a woman who was certainly complex psychologically. One wishes one of the children she raised had survived to tell their stories. Schechter tells the story well, though occasionally it gets bogged down in the florid language of the period (he quotes from contemporary newspapers frequently). Sadly, there are no answers to what really happened: the evidence remains as much of a mystery today as it was then.