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Inspired by author Tori Telfer's Jezebel column “Lady Killers,” this thrilling and entertaining compendium investigates female serial killers and their crimes through the ages.
When you think of serial killers throughout history, the names that come to mind are ones like Jack the Ripper, John Wayne Gacy, and Ted Bundy. But what about Tillie Klimek, Moulay Hassan, Kate Bender? The narrative we’re comfortable with is the one where women are the victims of violent crime, not the perpetrators. In fact, serial killers are thought to be so universally, overwhelmingly male that in 1998, FBI profiler Roy Hazelwood infamously declared in a homicide conference, “There are no female serial killers.”
Lady Killers, based on the popular online series that appeared on Jezebel and The Hairpin, disputes that claim and offers fourteen gruesome examples as evidence. Though largely forgotten by history, female serial killers such as Erzsébet Báthory, Nannie Doss, Mary Ann Cotton, and Darya Nikolayevna Saltykova rival their male counterparts in cunning, cruelty, and appetite for destruction.
Each chapter explores the crimes and history of a different subject, and then proceeds to unpack her legacy and her portrayal in the media, as well as the stereotypes and sexist clichés that inevitably surround her. The first book to examine female serial killers through a feminist lens with a witty and dryly humorous tone, Lady Killers dismisses easy explanations (she was hormonal, she did it for love, a man made her do it) and tired tropes (she was a femme fatale, a black widow, a witch), delving into the complex reality of female aggression and predation. Featuring 14 illustrations from Dame Darcy, Lady Killers is a bloodcurdling, insightful, and irresistible journey into the heart of darkness.
(Summary provided by the publisher)
Tori Telfer graduated magna cum laude from Northwestern University with a Bachelor of Arts in creative writing. She was the recipient of both the Edwin L. Shuman Best Senior Honors Thesis in the English Major in Writing Award and the Edwin L. Shuman Fiction Award; an NU Undergraduate Research Symposium award; the J.G Nolan Scholarship and the Hulda & Maurice Rothschild Endowment for academic excellence; and a membership in Phi Beta Kappa.
After college, she worked in children's publishing and teaching before going freelance. Over her 8+ years of freelance experience, she has written marketing copy for everything from specialty manicure tools to indie theater companies, worked with CEOs and startup founders as the editor-in-chief of Hippo Thinks to help them publish in places like Forbes and Fast Company, edited numerous PhD dissertations, written viral reported pieces, and been featured several times on longform.org. She has also done plenty of catering, which she not-so-secretly adores.
Her writing has appeared in The Believer, The Atlantic (online), Rolling Stone (online), Smithsonian (online), Vulture, Salon, Vice, Longreads, Racked, Jezebel, The Hairpin, The Awl, and elsewhere. (See Clips.) Her screenplay, DETECTIVE IN THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL WOMEN, was awarded honorable mention in the Table Read My Screenplay contest. She has written, produced, and directed two plays. She has hosted three podcasts: Criminal Broads, on the Lit Hub Radio network, Red Flags, with Investigation Discovery, and Why Women Kill, with CBS All Access. (See Podcasts for more details.)
Her first book, LADY KILLERS (Harper Perennial), was published on October 10, 2017. It's a "thrilling character study of the most diabolically complex, fascinating female psychopaths in history” (New York Times bestselling author M. William Phelps), and it has been published in Brazil, Poland, the UK, Spain, and Korea (forthcoming). Her second book, CONFIDENT WOMEN (Harper Perennial) comes out on February 23, 2021. It’s a little less bloody, and it’s absolutely packed with pseudonyms.
She lives in New York City with her husband and the cutest baby in the world, Cecil.
(Biography provided by the author.)
