Book Review: ‘Women Who Murder’

It is curiously reassuring to read Mitzi Szereto’s new true crime anthology and be reminded that the United States holds no monopoly on violent death. And nor do men.

The memorable characters we meet in Women Who Murder: An International Collection of Deadly True Crime Tales, due out March 12, include a sex-crazed Nazi, an Indian cyanide killer, a failed Malaysian singer who finds fame as a murderer, and an Australian who skins her victim and stews his head. The cases underscore the differences in the sexes when it comes to killing; while men typically reach for a gun, women can be much more creative.

Szereto’s own contribution dives into the story of Mahin Qadiri, Iran’s first known woman serial killer. Deep in debt and struggling to care for a disabled child, Qadiri befriends elderly women and knocks them unconscious with spiked fruit juice before strangling them and stealing their jewelry.

Northern Ireland writer Ciaran Conliffe takes a fresh look at a notorious American killer, Ruth Snyder, who murdered her husband with the help of a lover. Her 1928 execution in Sing Sing’s electric chair was famously captured by a concealed camera and splashed across the front page of the New York Daily News.

Cathy Pickens taps into the Southern Gothic character of the case of Susan Smith, the South Carolina mother who drowned her toddler sons 30 years ago and told the world she’d been carjacked by a Black man. The essay conjures a small town’s dirty secrets and asks whether Smith intended to die in John D. Long Lake along with her boys but chickened out. (Smith’s first parole hearing is scheduled in November 2024.)

Next to Szereto’s tale from Iran, the best of the collection is Canadian crime writer Mike Browne’s examination of the death of a 12-year-old girl in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. Browne lived in the small town for more than 20 years, and his knowledge of the area adds a layer of ominous familiarity to his essay.