America's First Female Serial Killer
Jane Toppan and the Making of a Monster
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $29.38
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Mary Kay McBrayer
About this listen
This book is for listeners of true crime podcasts and audiences of both fiction and true-crime nonfiction. It is for watchers of television shows like Deadly Women and Mindhunter who are fascinated by how killers are made. It's for self-conscious feminists, Americans trying to bootstrap themselves into success, and anyone who loves a vigilante beatdown, especially one gone off the rails.
It's the true story of first-generation Irish-American nurse Jane Toppan, born as Honora Kelley. Because even though all the facts are intact, books about her life and her crimes are all facts and no story. Jane Toppan was absolutely a monster, but she did not start out that way.
When Jane was a young child, her father abandoned her and her sister to the Boston Female Asylum. From there, Jane was indentured to a wealthy family who changed her name, never adopted her, wrote her out of the will, and essentially taught her to hate herself. Jilted at the altar, Jane became a nurse and took control of her life - and the lives of her victims.
©2020 Mary Kay McBrayer (P)2020 Dreamscape Media, LLCListeners also enjoyed...
-
Green River, Running Red
- By: Ann Rule
- Narrated by: Barbara Caruso
- Length: 19 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the most extraordinary journey Ann Rule has ever undertaken, America's master of true crime has spent more than two decades researching the story of the Green River Killer, who murdered more than 49 young women. Green River, Running Red is a harrowing account of a modern monster, a killer who walked among us undetected. It is also the story of his quarry -- of who these young women were and who they might have become.
-
-
Suspenseful and chilling
- By 9S on 07-02-11
By: Ann Rule
-
The Killer's Shadow
- The FBI's Hunt for a White Supremacist Serial Killer
- By: John E. Douglas, Mark Olshaker
- Narrated by: Holt McCallany
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Worshippers stream out of an Midwestern synagogue after sabbath services, unaware that only a hundred yards away, an expert marksman and avowed racist, antisemite and member of the Ku Klux Klan, patiently awaits, his hunting rifle at the ready. A riveting, cautionary tale rooted in history that continues to echo today, The Killer's Shadow is a terrifying and essential exploration of the criminal personality in the vile grip of extremism and what happens when rage-filled speech evolves into deadly action and hatred of the “other" is allowed full reign.
-
-
A relevant and important read.
- By Alyson on 12-25-20
By: John E. Douglas, and others
-
Mindhunter
- Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit
- By: John E. Douglas, Mark Olshaker
- Narrated by: Richard M. Davidson
- Length: 15 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bonus material! Includes an excerpt from John Douglas and Mark Olshaker’s Obsession! Discover the classic behind-the-scenes chronicle of John E. Douglas’ 25-year career in the FBI Investigative Support Unit, where he used psychological profiling to delve into the minds of the country’s most notorious serial killers and criminals - the basis for the upcoming Netflix original series.
-
-
I have purchased every book J.E.D. Has made available
- By leelee8888 on 10-29-17
By: John E. Douglas, and others
-
Starvation Heights
- Dangerous Women: True Crime Stories
- By: Gregg Olsen
- Narrated by: Stacey Glemboski
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1911 two British heiresses, Claire and Dora Williamson, read a brochure about a revolutionary fasting treatment that promised a lifetime of good health. The sanatorium in the village of Olalla, west of Seattle, was surrounded by a beautiful forest, sparkling waters and fresh air. The sisters agreed it sounded perfect and exactly the restorative holiday they needed. But within a month of arriving, under the supervision of Doctor Linda Burfield Hazzard, Claire and Dora began to realise the frightening truth – they were not patients but prisoners at the isolated sanitorium.
-
-
Excellent true crime story!
- By Colleen T. Mizeres on 01-26-23
By: Gregg Olsen
-
The Stranger Beside Me
- The Shocking True Story of Serial Killer Ted Bundy
- By: Ann Rule
- Narrated by: Lorelei King
- Length: 18 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ann Rule was working on the biggest story of her career, tracking the trail of victims left by a brutal serial killer. Little did this future best-selling author know that the savage slayer she was hunting was the young man she counted among her closest friends. Everyone's picture of a natural winner, Ted Bundy was a bright, charming, and handsome man with a promising future as an attorney. But on January 24, 1989 Bundy was executed for the murders of three young women - and had confessed to taking the lives of at least thirty-five more women from coast to coast.
-
-
Another Good One from Ann Rule
- By Malia on 08-24-12
By: Ann Rule
-
Hell's Princess
- The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the pantheon of serial killers, Belle Gunness stands alone. She was the rarest of female psychopaths, a woman who engaged in wholesale slaughter, partly out of greed but mostly for the sheer joy of it. Between 1902 and 1908, she lured a succession of unsuspecting victims to her Indiana “murder farm". Some were hired hands. Others were well-to-do bachelors. All of them vanished without a trace.
-
-
Can a book about a serial killer be entertaining?
- By Lori Hanson on 05-08-18
By: Harold Schechter
-
Green River, Running Red
- By: Ann Rule
- Narrated by: Barbara Caruso
- Length: 19 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the most extraordinary journey Ann Rule has ever undertaken, America's master of true crime has spent more than two decades researching the story of the Green River Killer, who murdered more than 49 young women. Green River, Running Red is a harrowing account of a modern monster, a killer who walked among us undetected. It is also the story of his quarry -- of who these young women were and who they might have become.
-
-
Suspenseful and chilling
- By 9S on 07-02-11
By: Ann Rule
-
The Killer's Shadow
- The FBI's Hunt for a White Supremacist Serial Killer
- By: John E. Douglas, Mark Olshaker
- Narrated by: Holt McCallany
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Worshippers stream out of an Midwestern synagogue after sabbath services, unaware that only a hundred yards away, an expert marksman and avowed racist, antisemite and member of the Ku Klux Klan, patiently awaits, his hunting rifle at the ready. A riveting, cautionary tale rooted in history that continues to echo today, The Killer's Shadow is a terrifying and essential exploration of the criminal personality in the vile grip of extremism and what happens when rage-filled speech evolves into deadly action and hatred of the “other" is allowed full reign.
-
-
A relevant and important read.
- By Alyson on 12-25-20
By: John E. Douglas, and others
-
Mindhunter
- Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit
- By: John E. Douglas, Mark Olshaker
- Narrated by: Richard M. Davidson
- Length: 15 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bonus material! Includes an excerpt from John Douglas and Mark Olshaker’s Obsession! Discover the classic behind-the-scenes chronicle of John E. Douglas’ 25-year career in the FBI Investigative Support Unit, where he used psychological profiling to delve into the minds of the country’s most notorious serial killers and criminals - the basis for the upcoming Netflix original series.
-
-
I have purchased every book J.E.D. Has made available
- By leelee8888 on 10-29-17
By: John E. Douglas, and others
-
Starvation Heights
- Dangerous Women: True Crime Stories
- By: Gregg Olsen
- Narrated by: Stacey Glemboski
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1911 two British heiresses, Claire and Dora Williamson, read a brochure about a revolutionary fasting treatment that promised a lifetime of good health. The sanatorium in the village of Olalla, west of Seattle, was surrounded by a beautiful forest, sparkling waters and fresh air. The sisters agreed it sounded perfect and exactly the restorative holiday they needed. But within a month of arriving, under the supervision of Doctor Linda Burfield Hazzard, Claire and Dora began to realise the frightening truth – they were not patients but prisoners at the isolated sanitorium.
-
-
Excellent true crime story!
- By Colleen T. Mizeres on 01-26-23
By: Gregg Olsen
-
The Stranger Beside Me
- The Shocking True Story of Serial Killer Ted Bundy
- By: Ann Rule
- Narrated by: Lorelei King
- Length: 18 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ann Rule was working on the biggest story of her career, tracking the trail of victims left by a brutal serial killer. Little did this future best-selling author know that the savage slayer she was hunting was the young man she counted among her closest friends. Everyone's picture of a natural winner, Ted Bundy was a bright, charming, and handsome man with a promising future as an attorney. But on January 24, 1989 Bundy was executed for the murders of three young women - and had confessed to taking the lives of at least thirty-five more women from coast to coast.
-
-
Another Good One from Ann Rule
- By Malia on 08-24-12
By: Ann Rule
-
Hell's Princess
- The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the pantheon of serial killers, Belle Gunness stands alone. She was the rarest of female psychopaths, a woman who engaged in wholesale slaughter, partly out of greed but mostly for the sheer joy of it. Between 1902 and 1908, she lured a succession of unsuspecting victims to her Indiana “murder farm". Some were hired hands. Others were well-to-do bachelors. All of them vanished without a trace.
-
-
Can a book about a serial killer be entertaining?
- By Lori Hanson on 05-08-18
By: Harold Schechter
-
Dangerous Dozen
- Notorious USA True Crime Box Set
- By: Gregg Olsen, Katherine Ramsland, Rebecca Morris, and others
- Narrated by: Kevin Pierce
- Length: 25 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A true-crime collection culled from the crime files of the New York Times best-selling series, Notorious USA.
-
-
Great value
- By Xyz on 04-02-18
By: Gregg Olsen, and others
-
I'll Be Gone in the Dark
- One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer
- By: Michelle McNamara
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman, Gillian Flynn - introduction, Patton Oswalt - afterword
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A masterful true crime account of the Golden State Killer - the elusive serial rapist turned murderer who terrorized California for over a decade - from Michelle McNamara, the gifted journalist who died tragically while investigating the case.
-
-
A haunting masterpiece
- By Kat - Audible on 03-02-18
-
American Serial Killers
- The Epidemic Years 1950-2000
- By: Peter Vronsky
- Narrated by: René Ruiz
- Length: 16 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With books like Serial Killers, Female Serial Killers and Sons of Cain, Peter Vronsky has established himself as the foremost expert on the history of serial killers. In this first definitive history of the "Golden Age" of American serial murder, when the number and body count of serial killers exploded, Vronsky tells the stories of the most unusual and prominent serial killings from the 1950s to the early 21st century. From Ted Bundy to the Golden State Killer, our fascination with these classic serial killers seems to grow by the day.
-
-
Great listen!!!
- By Malik Banks on 07-17-21
By: Peter Vronsky
-
Bind, Torture, Kill
- The Inside Story of BTK, the Serial Killer Next Door
- By: Roy Wenzl, Tim Potter, L. Kelly, and others
- Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For 31 years, a monster terrorized the residents of Wichita, Kansas. A bloodthirsty serial killer, self-named "BTK" - for "bind them, torture them, kill them" - he slaughtered men, women, and children alike, eluding the police for decades while bragging of his grisly exploits to the media. The nation was shocked when the fiend who was finally apprehended turned out to be Dennis Rader - a friendly neighbor...a devoted husband...a helpful Boy Scout dad...the respected president of his church. Written by four award-winning crime reporters who covered the story for more than 20 years, Bind, Torture, Kill is the most intimate and complete account of the BTK nightmare
-
-
Stomach churning
- By 6catz on 02-19-18
By: Roy Wenzl, and others
-
In Cold Blood
- By: Truman Capote
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.
-
-
Still the Best
- By Lisa on 01-10-06
By: Truman Capote
-
American Predator
- The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century
- By: Maureen Callahan
- Narrated by: Amy Landon
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The names of notorious serial killers are usually well-known; they echo in the news and in public consciousness. But most people have never heard of Israel Keyes, one of the most ambitious and terrifying serial killers in modern history American Predator is the ambitious culmination of years of interviews with key figures in law enforcement and in Keyes's life, and research uncovered from classified FBI files. Callahan takes us on a journey into the chilling, nightmarish mind of a relentless killer, and to the limitations of traditional law enforcement.
-
-
Why you shouldn’t listen to Reviews
- By jofi00 on 10-23-19
By: Maureen Callahan
-
The I-5 Killer
- By: Ann Rule, Andy Stack
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a young man, Randall Woodfield had it all; he was a star athlete with good looks and an award-winning student. Working in the swinging West Coast bar scene, he had more than his share of women. But he wanted more than just sex. An appetite for unspeakable violent acts led him to cruise the I-5 highway through California to Washington, leaving a trail of victims along the way. As the list of the dead grew, the police mobilized to stop a twisted killer who had 44 known deaths to his name.
-
-
Ann Rule always delivers
- By Anonymous User on 10-17-19
By: Ann Rule, and others
-
Confession of a Serial Killer
- The Untold Story of Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer
- By: Katherine Ramsland PhD
- Narrated by: Michael Braun
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1974, Dennis Lynn Rader stalked and murdered a family of four in Wichita, Kansas. Since adolescence, he had read about serial killers and imagined becoming one. Soon after killing the family, he murdered a young woman and then another, until he had 10 victims. He named himself “B.T.K.” (bind, torture, kill) and wrote notes that terrorized the city. He remained on the loose for 30 years.
-
-
Boring & lame! Don’t wast your credit!!
- By Iread on 01-23-22
-
The Serial Killer Files
- The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World’s Most Terrifying Murderers
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 18 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hollywood's make-believe maniacs like Jason, Freddy, and Hannibal Lecter can't hold a candle to real-life monsters like John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and scores of others who have terrorized, tortured, and terminated their way across civilization throughout the ages. Now, from the much-acclaimed author of Deviant, Deranged, and Depraved, comes the ultimate resource on the serial killer phenomenon.
-
-
Made me feel sick, yet I didn't want it to end
- By Neuron on 02-07-17
By: Harold Schechter
-
Fiend
- The Shocking True Story of America's Youngest Serial Killer
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Kyle Tait
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When 14-year-old Jesse Pomeroy was arrested in 1874, a nightmarish reign of terror over an unsuspecting city came to an end. "The Boston Boy Fiend" was imprisoned at last. But the complex questions sparked by his ghastly crime spree - the hows and whys of vicious juvenile crime - were as relevant in the so-called Age of Innocence as they are today.
-
-
Graphic descriptions of child torture
- By mobius_spider on 11-13-20
By: Harold Schechter
-
The Big Book of Serial Killers
- An Encyclopedia of Serial Killers - 150 Serial Killer Files of the World's Worst Murderers
- By: Jack Rosewood, Rebecca Lo
- Narrated by: Kevin Kollins
- Length: 17 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There is little more terrifying than those who hunt, stalk, and snatch their prey under the cloak of darkness. These hunters search not for animals, but for the touch, taste, and empowerment of human flesh. They are cannibals, vampires, and monsters, and they walk among us. These serial killers are not mythical beasts with horns and shaggy hair. They are people living among society, going about their day-to-day activities until nightfall. They are the Dennis Rader's, the fathers, husbands, church-going members of the community.
-
-
GREAT FOR TRUE CRIME DEVOTÉES, BUT....
- By The Louligan on 10-31-17
By: Jack Rosewood, and others
-
The Boy in the Cellar
- By: Stephen Smith
- Narrated by: Oliver J. Hembrough
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stephen Smith is the boy who did not exist. Born out of wedlock in the early 1960s, Steve's parents - both devout Catholics - had felt so 'shamed' by their son's illegitimate birth that they hid him away from the world by locking him in the cellar...for 13 years. Apart from a few admissions to hospital as a result of his 'imprisonment', Steve remained in the coal cellar of the family home where he was deprived of daylight, his childhood, school and human contact until he'd reached his teenage years.
-
-
At first I thought this was horror fiction
- By Ruth Malan on 04-11-20
By: Stephen Smith
Related to this topic
-
Nobody's Sweetheart Now
- By: Maggie Robinson
- Narrated by: Gemma Dawson
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
England, 1924. Lady Adelaide Compton has recently (and satisfactorily) interred her husband, Major Rupert Charles Cressleigh Compton, hero of the Somme, in the family vault in the village churchyard. Rupert died by smashing his Hispano-Suiza on a Cotswold country road while carrying a French mademoiselle in the passenger seat. With the house now Addie's, needed improvements in hand, and a weekend house party underway, how inconvenient of Rupert to turn up - not in the flesh, but as a spirit! Rupert has to perform a few good deeds before becoming welcomed to heaven.
-
-
Fresh New Voice For Me..Very Good
- By John on 08-06-20
By: Maggie Robinson
-
Belle Cora
- A Novel
- By: Phillip Margulies
- Narrated by: Graham Rowat, Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 25 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the home where Arabella Godwin was raised it is forbidden to speak her name, and her picture is turned to the wall. But in the turbulent America of the 1850s, everyone knows her as "Belle Cora", madam of San Francisco's finest bordello. Judges and senators do her bidding; a vicious newspaper editor plots her downfall; a preacher looks at her from across his pulpit and tries to forget that once she was his wife. Merchant's daughter, farm girl, prostitute, mother - the only thing that never changes is her tireless pursuit of the one man who can see her for who she really is.
-
-
excellent
- By Patricia on 05-15-20
-
Cashelmara
- By: Susan Howatch
- Narrated by: Gary Furlong, Carly Robins
- Length: 27 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Edward de Salis travels to America after the death of his first wife, he is astonished to find himself falling in love with Marguerite, a young woman many years his junior. Full of hope for the future, he returns to his Irish estate, Cashelmara, but in 19th-century Ireland - a country racked by poverty and famine - his family eventually becomes trapped in a sinister spiral of violence that Edward could never have foreseen.
-
-
Wonderful Story
- By Ann Marie Taylor on 07-04-20
By: Susan Howatch
-
Death at Greenway
- A Novel
- By: Lori Rader-Day
- Narrated by: Moira Quirk
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the award-winning author of The Day I Died and The Lucky One, a captivating suspense novel about nurses during World War II who come to Agatha Christie’s holiday estate to care for evacuated children, but when a body is discovered nearby, the idyllic setting becomes host to a deadly mystery.
-
-
Wonderful story & characters that kept me company
- By Kim Fountain on 10-24-21
By: Lori Rader-Day
-
A Duty to the Dead
- A Bess Crawford Mystery
- By: Charles Todd
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The daughter of a distinguished soldier, Bess Crawford follows in his patriotic footsteps, volunteering to serve her country as a nurse during the Great War. In 1916 she promises Lieutenant Arthur Graham that she will carry his dying request to a brother. When Bess arrives at the Graham house in Kent, Jonathan Graham listens to his brother's last wishes with surprising indifference.
-
-
Terrific period mystery
- By Anne on 12-04-10
By: Charles Todd
-
The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna
- A Novel
- By: Juliet Grames
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 16 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For Stella Fortuna, death has always been a part of life. Stella’s childhood is full of strange, life-threatening incidents - moments where ordinary situations like cooking eggplant or feeding the pigs inexplicably take lethal turns. Even Stella’s own mother is convinced that her daughter is cursed or haunted. When the Fortunas emigrate to America on the cusp of World War II, Stella and her sister, Tina, must come of age side by side in a hostile new world with strict expectations for each of them.
-
-
Misogyny at its worst
- By brenda on 01-15-20
By: Juliet Grames
-
Nobody's Sweetheart Now
- By: Maggie Robinson
- Narrated by: Gemma Dawson
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
England, 1924. Lady Adelaide Compton has recently (and satisfactorily) interred her husband, Major Rupert Charles Cressleigh Compton, hero of the Somme, in the family vault in the village churchyard. Rupert died by smashing his Hispano-Suiza on a Cotswold country road while carrying a French mademoiselle in the passenger seat. With the house now Addie's, needed improvements in hand, and a weekend house party underway, how inconvenient of Rupert to turn up - not in the flesh, but as a spirit! Rupert has to perform a few good deeds before becoming welcomed to heaven.
-
-
Fresh New Voice For Me..Very Good
- By John on 08-06-20
By: Maggie Robinson
-
Belle Cora
- A Novel
- By: Phillip Margulies
- Narrated by: Graham Rowat, Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 25 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the home where Arabella Godwin was raised it is forbidden to speak her name, and her picture is turned to the wall. But in the turbulent America of the 1850s, everyone knows her as "Belle Cora", madam of San Francisco's finest bordello. Judges and senators do her bidding; a vicious newspaper editor plots her downfall; a preacher looks at her from across his pulpit and tries to forget that once she was his wife. Merchant's daughter, farm girl, prostitute, mother - the only thing that never changes is her tireless pursuit of the one man who can see her for who she really is.
-
-
excellent
- By Patricia on 05-15-20
-
Cashelmara
- By: Susan Howatch
- Narrated by: Gary Furlong, Carly Robins
- Length: 27 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Edward de Salis travels to America after the death of his first wife, he is astonished to find himself falling in love with Marguerite, a young woman many years his junior. Full of hope for the future, he returns to his Irish estate, Cashelmara, but in 19th-century Ireland - a country racked by poverty and famine - his family eventually becomes trapped in a sinister spiral of violence that Edward could never have foreseen.
-
-
Wonderful Story
- By Ann Marie Taylor on 07-04-20
By: Susan Howatch
-
Death at Greenway
- A Novel
- By: Lori Rader-Day
- Narrated by: Moira Quirk
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the award-winning author of The Day I Died and The Lucky One, a captivating suspense novel about nurses during World War II who come to Agatha Christie’s holiday estate to care for evacuated children, but when a body is discovered nearby, the idyllic setting becomes host to a deadly mystery.
-
-
Wonderful story & characters that kept me company
- By Kim Fountain on 10-24-21
By: Lori Rader-Day
-
A Duty to the Dead
- A Bess Crawford Mystery
- By: Charles Todd
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The daughter of a distinguished soldier, Bess Crawford follows in his patriotic footsteps, volunteering to serve her country as a nurse during the Great War. In 1916 she promises Lieutenant Arthur Graham that she will carry his dying request to a brother. When Bess arrives at the Graham house in Kent, Jonathan Graham listens to his brother's last wishes with surprising indifference.
-
-
Terrific period mystery
- By Anne on 12-04-10
By: Charles Todd
-
The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna
- A Novel
- By: Juliet Grames
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 16 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For Stella Fortuna, death has always been a part of life. Stella’s childhood is full of strange, life-threatening incidents - moments where ordinary situations like cooking eggplant or feeding the pigs inexplicably take lethal turns. Even Stella’s own mother is convinced that her daughter is cursed or haunted. When the Fortunas emigrate to America on the cusp of World War II, Stella and her sister, Tina, must come of age side by side in a hostile new world with strict expectations for each of them.
-
-
Misogyny at its worst
- By brenda on 01-15-20
By: Juliet Grames
-
The Golden Hour
- A Novel
- By: Beatriz Williams
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 16 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Bahamas, 1941. Newly widowed Leonora “Lulu” Randolph arrives in Nassau to investigate the governor and his wife for a New York society magazine. After all, American readers have an insatiable appetite for news of the duke and duchess of Windsor, that glamorous couple whose love affair nearly brought the British monarchy to its knees five years earlier. What more intriguing backdrop for their romance than a wartime Caribbean paradise, a colonial playground for kingpins of ill-gotten empires? Or so Lulu imagines.
-
-
Stick with it!
- By Colleen on 07-17-19
By: Beatriz Williams
-
The Setting Sun
- New Directions Book
- By: Osamu Dazai
- Narrated by: June Angela
- Length: 4 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the early postwar years, it probes the destructive effects of war and the transition from a feudal Japan to an industrial society. Ozamu Dazai died, a suicide, in 1948. But the influence of his book has made "people of the setting sun" a permanent part of the Japanese language, and his heroine, Kazuko, a young aristocrat who deliberately abandons her class, a symbol of the anomie which pervades so much of the modern world.
-
-
MORE OSAMU DAZAI TRANSLATIONS PLEASE!!!!!
- By Lucky on 10-19-22
By: Osamu Dazai
-
Murder on the Golden Arrow
- Kitty Worthington Mysteries Series, Book 1
- By: Magda Alexander
- Narrated by: Kim Bretton
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
England. 1923. After a year away at finishing school where she learned etiquette, deportment, and the difference between a fish fork and a salad one, Kitty Worthington is eager to return home. But minutes after she and her brother Ned board the Golden Arrow, the unthinkable happens. A woman with a mysterious connection to her brother is poisoned, and the murderer can only be someone aboard the train. When Scotland Yard hones on Ned as the main suspect, Kitty sets out to investigate.
-
-
Cozy mystery
- By Patricia V. on 06-26-23
By: Magda Alexander
-
If I Were You: A Novel
- By: Lynn Austin
- Narrated by: Sarah Zimmerman
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1950. In the wake of the war, Audrey Clarkson leaves her manor house in England for a fresh start in America with her young son. As a widowed war bride, Audrey needs the support of her American in-laws, whom she has never met. But she arrives to find that her longtime friend Eve Dawson has been impersonating her for the past four years. Unraveling this deception will force Audrey and Eve’s secrets - and the complicated history of their friendship - to the surface.
-
-
performed beautifully
- By Colby on 07-16-20
By: Lynn Austin
-
The Godmothers
- A Novel
- By: Camille Aubray
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan, Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet the Godmothers: Filomena is a clever and resourceful war refugee with a childhood secret, who comes to America to wed Mario, the family's favored son. Amie, a beautiful and dreamy French girl from upstate New York, escapes an abusive husband after falling in love with Johnny, the oldest of the brothers. Lucy, a tough-as-nails Irish nurse, ran away from a strict girls' home and marries Frankie, the sensuous middle son. And the glamorous Petrina, the family's only daughter, graduates with honors from Barnard College despite a past trauma that nearly caused a family scandal.
-
-
Easy Enjoyable Read
- By Bunny on 06-23-21
By: Camille Aubray
-
Maggie-Now
- A Novel
- By: Betty Smith
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Brooklyn's unforgiving urban jungle, Maggie Moore is torn between answering her own needs and catering to the desirous men who dominate her life. Confronted by her quarrelsome Irish immigrant father, the feckless lover who may become her husband, and others, Maggie must learn to navigate a cycle of loss, separation, and hope as she forges her own path toward happiness.
-
-
no unabridged
- By sally on 08-03-21
By: Betty Smith
-
The Love Note
- By: Tracy Rees
- Narrated by: Jasmine Blackborow
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Perfect for fans of The Keeper of Lost Things and The Villa in Italy. Blue lives a charmed life. From her family's townhouse in Richmond, she lives a life of luxury and couldn't want for anything - well, on the surface at least. Then, on the night of her 21st birthday, her father makes a startling toast: he will give his daughter's hand to whichever man can capture her heart best in the form of a love letter. But Blue has other ideas, and, unwilling to play at her father's bewildering games, she sets out on her own path to find her own destiny....
-
-
The Love Note❣️
- By Leslie Gail Mnich on 10-25-20
By: Tracy Rees
-
Pale Horse, Pale Rider
- Three Short Novels
- By: Katherine Anne Porter
- Narrated by: Chelsea Stephens
- Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The classic 1939 collection of three novellas by the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author and journalist, including the famous title story set during the influenza epidemic of 1918.
-
-
Some of the most brilliant prose ever written
- By Anonymous User on 03-21-23
-
The War Nurses: A Moving Wartime Romance Saga Full of Heart
- The War Nurses Series
- By: Lizzie Page
- Narrated by: Marian Hussey
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You will love every moment of this absolutely brilliant wartime saga, perfect for fans of Diney Costeloe, Soraya M. Lane, and Nadine Dorries. As war takes its toll, the love and care of two brave young nurses become everything to the wounded soldiers they tend... 1914. Two plucky young nurses pledge to help the war effort: Mairi, a wholesome idealist hoping to leave behind her past and Elsie, a glamorous single mother with a weakness for handsome soldiers. Despite their differences, the pair become firm friends.
-
-
I really really wanted to like this book...
- By Teresa M. Thornborough on 09-26-19
By: Lizzie Page
-
Exit Betty
- By: Grace Livingston Hill
- Narrated by: Anne Hancock
- Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Soon-to-be heiress Betty Stanhope is a runaway bride, but not for the usual reasons - she didn't flee because of a change of heart. Reluctant about the wedding at the outset, the dutiful Betty reaches the altar to find that her groom is a different man altogether and someone she's dreaded most of her life! Before the wedding can proceed, she is taken to a room to recover from her fainting spell.
-
-
AMAZING
- By Peggy Palmer on 02-15-18
-
Silent in the Grave
- By: Deanna Raybourn
- Narrated by: Ellen Archer
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave. These ominous words, slashed from the pages of a book of Psalms, are the last threat that the darling of London society, Sir Edward Grey, receives from his killer. Before he can show them to Nicholas Brisbane, the private inquiry agent he has retained for his protection, Sir Edward collapses and dies at his London home, in the presence of his wife, Julia, and a roomful of dinner guests.
-
-
Happily surprised
- By 9S on 07-04-09
By: Deanna Raybourn
-
Mayhem
- By: Sarah Pinborough
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A new killer is stalking the streets of London’s East End. Though newspapers have dubbed him 'the Torso Killer’, this murderer’s work is overshadowed by the hysteria surrounding Jack the Ripper’s Whitechapel crimes. The victims are women too, but their dismembered bodies, wrapped in rags and tied up with string, are pulled out of the Thames - and the heads are missing….
-
-
Just Wow.
- By Sylvia on 03-04-14
By: Sarah Pinborough
What listeners say about America's First Female Serial Killer
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jason Hejna
- 05-09-20
I couldn’t put it down
This is one of the best books about a serial killer I have read. There’s a certain sick fascination I think we all get from Serial killers. America’s first female serial killer delivers on this fascination. Page turning plot. I would recommend this book to anyone.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- !n!go
- 09-23-21
Wow!
I’m just starting chapter 7 and couldn’t help but review. I knew the book would be wonderful after the introduction, but held off reviewing. McBrayer is a stunning beautiful writer… especially for the subject. She is an equally talented reader. Often, the author should avoid reading their own book, but this is just not the case with McBrayer. Her voice is wonderful and the reading of her work is flawless.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sarah Chisolm
- 08-21-20
Very well written.
Mary Kay McBrayer has does an excellent job with this book. I was enthralled throughout. It is well written and very detailed. I feel like I learned a lot and enjoyed it along the way. I definitely recommend to anyone but especially anyone who is fascinated by true crime.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 02-04-24
A compelling story
I enjoyed the subject matter as true crime is very intriguing to me. and the author’s voice is mesmerizing. I found myself feeling sorry for Jane at times as I could see why she did what she did.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- KS a Guess
- 05-30-20
Gifted Storytelling - Rare in True Crime Genre
Mary Kay McBrayer narrates this true crime, and she is perfect for the job. The tone of the story itself is probably not what most people would expect of a historic true crime. It has a "dramatized" feel to it, but it works. Trust me. I have read and listened to many, many books in the genre.
Presenting the setting of a crime cannot be easy, even for more contemporary murder cases. This is not just referring to the geographical and time period. McBrayer is great at showing you what it must have been like for Jane Toppan, who was apparently born with needs that couldn't be satisfied by healthy relationships and who had the additional misfortune of being abandoned, neglected, then used for labor and frequently physically abused. No one was THERE for Jane, who could only watch and interact with people that appeared to lead normal lives. This true crime story shows you how those phases of Jane's life played out.
McBrayer doesn't often leave Jane alone for long periods of time by going into lengthy clinical explanations of the crimes and their origins. That's why (to me), this book is remarkable as a true story: the people (the victims and the survivors alike) actually existed, yet they are told so well they seem as "knowable" as the most carefully created characters of good fiction.
For some of the reasons that this book shines, it might not completely satisfy every true crime lover. It certainly humanizes the "bad" people, while not leaving out the detailed context that this cruelty emerged in. I highly recommend it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- JR
- 06-15-21
Great until the final third
Despite a rather naive preamble by author (read by author) the book was well paced, detailed, interesting and full of intelligently crafted nuance that felt true to the spirit of this woman’s biographical story with info from source material.
However once the media gets involved in the case and the author describes what protagonist’s internal monologue might have been refuting the simplicity of the hyperbolic slander about herself, the author takes dramatic liberties that make the author sound more like a millennial grad school drop out then a woman with the paradigm or verbiage of time period.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Stephen Lawrence
- 10-29-21
Narrative non-fiction instead of a case study
Not very good, more narrative non-fiction than a study of the serial killer in question
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Tiki Phyl
- 12-23-22
Written like a romance novel
Very few books are made better when they are read by the author. This isn't one of them.
The author starts out by stating this is the most accurate detailed book about Jane Toppan. The rest of the book is explicit conversations and daily happenings, which I found highly unlikely that there was any record of. The book is written more like a romance novel than a true crime. It definitely takes a lot of liberties with what might have happened. Still, I labored on and listened to the whole book, even tho a few things bothered me.
For example, there is a discussion by a sailor in 1901 (I think, maybe 1902) in which he laments that he quit smoking because he was short of breath, and besides his fingers could no longer strike a match, but if his fingers could light a cigarette, he'd smoke them both to the filter. This bothered me since at that time there was no correlation drawn between smoking and shortness of breath. And because filters were not added to cigarettes until the 1950's.
In another passage, the author writes that Jane pulled herself up by her bootstraps. That phrase had a much different meaning then, meaning it was an impossible and ludicrous task, not like today where it means fought her way up. Details matter.
By the end of the book, several sentences were repeated. It was hard to blame the editor though, as I'm sure they were nodding off by this point too.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful