Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters

by Peter Vronsky

Book Overview

In this fascinating book, Peter Vronsky exposes and investigates the phenomenon of women who kill--and the political, economic, social and sexual implications buried with each victim. How many of us are even remotely prepared to imagine our mothers, daughters, sisters or grandmothers as fiendish killers? For centuries we have been conditioned to think of serial murderers and psychopathic predators as men--with women registering low on our paranoia...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0425213900
• ISBN13: 9780425213902
• Release Date: August 2007
• Publisher: Berkley Books
• Length: 512 Pages
• Weight: 1.03 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.6" x 8.2"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Can't give zero stars

Do you want to learn how to skew research results to fit your narrative? This book is a good guide. Want to read an angry man rant? Read this book. I love true crime, love true crime documentaries, love reading in general. Can not get through the first section of this book. A non-fiction is not supposed to drip with the writer's bias. Give me facts without your own personal take. Will be recyling.

Amazing detail

This book was a very in-depth (as in thorough, not boring) evaluation of female serial killers. From Wuornos and her similiarity to the male stereotype back to Elizabath Bathore in the 1700s (?)s. I was initially put of by the structure of the book as it was difficult to comprehend and somewhat boring with few case examples, but once the case examples started flying the preface information was immensly useful though I don't know how it would have been organized otherwised. I was also worried that it would be very anti-female, but was pleasantly surprised though serious Feminists may be put off. I found the book very useful and very good for referencing again and for others to read.

Not your average tell all book

This was one of the most informative books I've ever read on serial killers! It was more than just a he did/she did book, it went into the differences between male/female killers as well as looked at the pathology. An amazing book!

Awesome new book on female serial killers!

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

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!

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.