The Angel Makers
Arsenic, a Midwife, and Modern History’s Most Astonishing Murder Ring
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Narrated by:
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Gabra Zackman
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By:
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Patti McCracken
About this listen
The Angel Makers is a true-crime story like no other—a 1920s midwife who may have been the century’s most prolific killer leading a murder ring of women responsible for the deaths of at least 160 men.
The horror occurred in a rustic farming enclave in modern-day Hungary. To look at the unlikely lineup of murderesses—village wives, mothers, and daughters—was to come to the shocking realization that this could have happened anywhere, and to anyone. At the center of it all was a sharp-minded village midwife, a “smiling Buddha” known as Auntie Suzy, who distilled arsenic from flypaper and distributed it to the women of Nagyrév. “Why are you bothering with him?” Auntie Suzy would ask, as she produced an arsenic-filled vial from her apron pocket. In the beginning, a great many used the deadly solution to finally be free of cruel and abusive spouses.
But as the number of dead bodies grew without consequence, the killers grew bolder. With each vial of poison emptied, a new reason surfaced to drain yet another. Some women disposed of sickly relatives. Some used arsenic as “inheritance powder” to secure land and houses. For more than fifteen years, the unlikely murderers aided death unfettered and tended to it as if it were simply another chore—spooning doses of arsenic into soup and wine, stirring it into coffee and brandy. By the time their crimes were discovered, hundreds were feared dead.
Anonymous notes brought the crimes to light in 1929. As a skillful prosecutor hungry for justice ran the investigation, newsmen from around the world—including the New York Times—poured in to cover the dramatic events as they unfolded.
The Angel Makers captures in expertly researched detail the entirety of this harrowing story, from the early murders to the final hanging—the story of one of the most sensational and astonishing murder rings in all of modern history.
©2023 Patti McCracken (P)2023 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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Girl in Hyacinth Blue
- By: Susan Vreeland
- Narrated by: Loren Lester, Sheryl Bernstein
- Length: 5 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A professor shows a colleague a painting that he has kept secret for decades. The professor swears it is a Vermeer - but why has he hidden this important work for so long? The reasons unfold in a series of stories that trace ownership of the painting back to World War II and Amsterdam, and still further back to the moment of the work's inspiration.
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wonderful
- By Sybil on 04-07-03
By: Susan Vreeland
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The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted
- By: Robert Hillman
- Narrated by: Daniel Lapaine
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
It is 1968 in rural Australia and lonely Tom Hope can't make heads or tails of Hannah Babel. Newly arrived from Hungary, Hannah is unlike anyone he's ever met - she's passionate, artistic, and fiercely determined to open sleepy Hometown's first bookshop. Despite the fact that Tom has only read only one book in his life, the two soon discover an astonishing spark. Recently abandoned by an unfaithful wife - and still missing her sweet son, Peter - Tom dares to believe that he might make Hannah happy.
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Listener beware
- By Little old lady from Iowa on 06-11-23
By: Robert Hillman
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A Beautiful Place to Die
- By: Malla Nunn
- Narrated by: Saul Reichlin
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Unfolding in 1952 South Africa, A Beautiful Place to Die is a riveting international mystery that flows from the pen of author Malla Nunn. Police officer Emmanuel Cooper is dispatched to a remote town after a police captain is found murdered in a creek. Even though Cooper judges the crime open and shut, the government's feared Special Branch is summoned, making for an intrigue that will titillate any mystery fan.
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Police Procedural & The Pain Of Apartheid
- By Sara on 09-30-15
By: Malla Nunn
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The Parisian
- By: Isabella Hammad
- Narrated by: Fiona Button
- Length: 20 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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A masterful debut novel by Plimpton Prize winner Isabella Hammad, The Parisian illuminates a pivotal period of Palestinian history through the journey and romances of one young man, from his studies in France during World War I to his return to Palestine at the dawn of its battle for independence.
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Overly ambitious
- By Placeholder on 06-16-19
By: Isabella Hammad
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Pearl in a Cage
- By: Joy Dettman
- Narrated by: Deidre Rubenstein
- Length: 20 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
On a balmy midsummer's evening in 1923, a young woman - foreign, dishevelled and heavily pregnant - is found unconscious just off the railway tracks in the tiny logging community of Woody Creek. The town midwife, Gertrude Foote, is roused from her bed when the woman is brought to her door. Try as she might, Gertrude is unable to save her, but the baby lives.
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Pearl in a Cage
- By Verita on 06-16-17
By: Joy Dettman
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The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre
- By: Dominic Smith
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In this luminous novel, Dominic Smith reinvents the life of one of photography's founding fathers. In 1839, Louis Daguerre's invention took the world by storm. A decade later, he is sinking deep into delusions brought on by exposure to mercury, the very agent that allowed his daguerreotype process. Believing the world will end within one year, he creates his "Doomsday List", 10 items he must photograph before the final day. It includes a woman he has always loved but has not seen in half a century.
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Dud
- By Deborah on 01-31-08
By: Dominic Smith
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The Traitor
- By: V.S. Alexander
- Narrated by: Christa Lewis
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In the summer of 1942, as war rages across Europe, a series of anonymous leaflets appears around the University of Munich, speaking out against escalating Nazi atrocities. The leaflets are hidden in public places, or mailed to addresses selected at random from the phone book. Natalya Petrovich, a student, knows who is behind the leaflets - a secret group called the White Rose, led by siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl and their friends. As a volunteer nurse on the Russian front, Natalya witnessed the horrors of war first-hand. She willingly enters the White Rose's circle....
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Not all the Germans are guilty.
- By Judy Harley on 09-18-20
By: V.S. Alexander
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The Twelve-Mile Straight
- A Novel
- By: Eleanor Henderson
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 17 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Cotton County, Georgia, 1930: In a house full of secrets, two babies - one light-skinned, the other dark - are born to Elma Jesup, a white sharecropper's daughter. Accused of her rape, field hand Genus Jackson is lynched and dragged behind a truck down the Twelve-Mile Straight, the road to the nearby town. In the aftermath, the farm's inhabitants are forced to contend with their complicity in a series of events that left a man dead and a family irrevocably fractured.
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Great read!
- By S. Clay on 11-01-17
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I Couldn't Love You More
- A Novel
- By: Esther Freud
- Narrated by: Niamh Cusack
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A sweeping story of three generations of women, crossing from London to Ireland and back again, and the enduring effort to retrieve the secrets of the past.
By: Esther Freud
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Gimpel the Fool and Other Stories
- By: Isaac Bashevis Singer
- Narrated by: Theodore Bikel
- Length: 2 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
These 4 stories are infused with the wit and imagination, the humor and wisdom, that characterizes all of Isaac Bashevis Singer's work. Theodore Bikel reads these wise and funny tales in classic Yiddish storyteller cadence, injecting special warmth and resonance. The tales include "Gimpel the Fool," "Esther Kreindel the Second," "The Spinoza of Market Street," and "The Black Wedding."
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Incredible narration
- By Frances on 01-10-19
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The Wapshot Chronicle
- By: John Cheever
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Based in part on Cheever's adolescence in New England, the novel follows the destinies of the impecunious and wildly eccentric Wapshots of St. Botolphs, a quintessential Massachusetts fishing village. Here are the stories of Captain Leander Wapshot, venerable sea dog and would-be suicide; of his licentious older son, Moses; and of Moses' adoring and errant younger brother, Coverly.
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Beautiful 1950s Great Expectations-like Novel
- By Darwin8u on 05-31-13
By: John Cheever
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The Magician of Lublin
- By: Isaac Bashevis Singer
- Narrated by: Larry Keith
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Magician can dazzle the crowds with his sleight of hand, climb to any height, open any lock. Fearlessly, he does death-defying tricks in theaters all over Poland. At home, his sweet Jewish wife waits for him to return from the city. In the city, his adoring mistresses wait for him to return from home. He holds the key to all hearts, but his own is beset with confusion.
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Complex Masterpiece
- By Evan on 09-11-08
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All for Nothing
- By: Walter Kempowski, Anthea Bell - translator, Jenny Erpenbeck - introduction
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In East Prussia, January 1945, the German forces are in retreat, and the Red Army is approaching. The von Globig family's manor house, the Georgenhof, is falling into disrepair. Auntie runs the estate as best she can since Eberhard von Globig, a special officer in the German army, went to war, leaving behind his beautiful but vague wife, Katharina, and her bookish 12-year-old son, Peter. As the road fills with Germans fleeing the occupied territories, the Georgenhof begins to receive strange visitors - a Nazi violinist, a dissident painter, a Baltic baron, even a Jewish refugee.
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All for Nothing
- By Lynn on 03-16-19
By: Walter Kempowski, and others
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Blood carries life, yet the sight of it makes people faint. It is a waste product and a commodity pricier than oil. It can save lives and transmit deadly infections. Each one of us has roughly nine pints of it, yet many don’t even know their own blood type. And for all its ubiquitousness, the few tablespoons of blood discharged by 800 million women are still regarded as taboo: menstruation is perhaps the single most demonized biological event.
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Author goes on long unnecessary tangents
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Fans of true crime shows like CSI, NCIS, Criminal Minds, and Law and Order know that when it comes to “getting the bad guy” behind bars, your best chance of success boils down to the strength of your evidence—and the forensic science used to obtain it. Beyond the silver screen, forensic science has been used for decades to help solve even the most tough-to-crack cases.
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Fueled by a childhood fascination with death, journalist Hayley Campbell searches for answers in the people who make a living by working with the dead. Along the way, she encounters mass fatality investigators, embalmers, and a former executioner who is responsible for ending sixty-two lives. She meets gravediggers who have already dug their own graves, visits a cryonics facility in Michigan, goes for late-night Chinese with a homicide detective, and questions a man whose job it is to make crime scenes disappear.
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Excellent
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According to the accepted narrative of progress, humans have thrived thanks to their brains and brawn, collectively bending the arc of history. But in this revelatory book, Professor Jonathan Kennedy argues that the myth of human exceptionalism overstates the role that we play in social and political change. Instead, it is the humble microbe that wins wars and topples empires.
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Devolves into political advocacy
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Without a Prayer
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Teenager Lucas Leonard made shocking admissions in front of the altar - he'd practiced witchcraft, conspired to murder his parents, and committed unspeakable crimes. The confessions earned him a brutal beating by a gang of angry church members, including his parents and sister. Lucas was brought to the hospital dead, awakening the sleepy community of Chadwicks, New York, to the horror that had been lurking next door. Nine members of Lucas' church would eventually find themselves facing murder-related charges. But how did they get to that point? And what made Lucas confess?
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The Depravity of the Human Soul
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By: Susan Ashline
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Dark Archives
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Performance
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On bookshelves around the world, surrounded by ordinary books bound in paper and leather, rest other volumes of a distinctly strange and grisly sort: those bound in human skin. Would you know one if you held it in your hand? In Dark Archives, Megan Rosenbloom seeks out the historic and scientific truths behind anthropodermic bibliopegy - the practice of binding books in this most intimate covering.
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Fascinating
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By: Megan Rosenbloom
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Unmask Alice
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In 1971, Go Ask Alice reinvented the young adult genre with a blistering portrayal of sex, psychosis, and teenage self-destruction. The supposed diary of a middle-class addict, Go Ask Alice terrified adults and cemented LSD's fearsome reputation, fueling support for the War on Drugs. Five million copies later, Go Ask Alice remains a divisive bestseller, outraging censors and earning new fans, all of them drawn by the book's mythic premise: A Real Diary, by Anonymous.
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I’m from Pleasant Grove where rumors of Jay’s Journal are alive and well
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The Education of a Coroner
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Ken Holmes worked in the Marin County Coroner's Office for 36 years, starting as a death investigator and ending as the three-term, elected coroner. As he grew into the job - which is different from what is depicted on television - Holmes learned a variety of skills, from finding hidden clues at death scenes, interviewing witnesses effectively, managing bystanders and reporters, preparing testimony for court, to notifying families of a death with sensitivity and compassion.
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Excellent read. What an Education.
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What listeners say about The Angel Makers
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- Crys H
- 03-25-23
Needless extraneous details…
Needless extraneous details fill in for lack of real substantive historical information. I would have preferred less ‘color’ and more substance, but it was still a decent read about real events.
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- Christina
- 06-14-23
An Engaging and Encompassing Read
Patti McCracken weaves together a true crime tale with all the fleshed out details of literary fiction. Similar to other recent non-fiction authors like Erik Larson, McCracken uses a mix of research and direct quotes with her own extrapolations to keep the work fairly fast paced and engaging. The connections and wide scope of the work bring to life how much this shocking story was not as singular or remote as it may appear. McCracken’s descriptions are fleshed out and do not leave much to the imagination, yet it still gives room for the listener to formulate their own questions and perspectives on the actions of the women of Nagyrév.
I found in general the descriptions to be the strongest point of the book. The more we can relate to historical events and people as humans, the better we can learn and consider our own perspectives. On this point, I sometimes felt there was a dearth of description or footnotes on aspects of Romani and Hungarian culture or history that could help fill in my dearth of knowledge. If I had a physical copy of the book, perhaps this would be less of a problem. I felt that in the notes and afterward McCracken brought more foreword, and I personally wouldn’t have minded more embedded in the main text.
The narrator, Gabra Zackman, also helps bring this story to life. Her clear and distinct voices between characters helped to keep track of them easily in a drama that ends up swallowing the town whole and its women with it. Even at 1.25x speed, Zackman’s performance never felt choppy or robotic. Occasionally the crier’s voice seemed a little over the top, but perhaps that is why they’re the crier! The only lull for me was towards the last few chapters of the book, wherein I felt that I knew what would happen and therefore felt no need to listen intently and in fact set it aside for nearly a few weeks even though I only had about twenty minutes to go!
I heartily recommend this book to anyone that has wanted to dip their toe into non-fiction, but the prospect of a dry textbook scared them off or to the true crime reader in need of a new history to tell their friends about.
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- A. Andreson
- 07-30-23
Read like Historical Fiction
An interesting affair bogged down by writing that felt waaay more like historical fiction... A tale of an evil (and fat, least we forget) midwife that led a group of desperate and/or greedy women to poison unwanted, and sometimes awful, men and babies/pregnancies.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 02-28-24
possibility of a good story lost
the story by itself is really interesting, but the way it was represented as a literary work was too boring, too many unnecessary paragraphs detailing rooms, smells, etc. Really wanted to hear more of actual testimonies, written articles at that time, and in general, more analysis of how these kind of events happened
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- Claire H Denham
- 03-27-23
Interesting Story, Questionable Execution
The story of the angel makers of Nagyrév is an interesting one. This particular telling of it doesn't really do it justice. The author focuses on a lot of extraneous details -- the murderous midwife is constantly described by her weight, to the point where it becomes a bit farcical. Not quite sure if the author was deliberately trying to draw a line between fat = bad, or if she was just so in love with the concept of the village midwife being this venal, fat, bloated tick of a woman feeding off the community she was supposed to serve that she was unable to move beyond the metaphor. The depiction is almost cartoonish -- the evil witch in a fairy tale.
This particular telling focuses on Aunty Suzy and her inner circle -- mostly family members -- and their unique take on problem solving. Their motivation is primarily greed.
I think that it would have been interesting to learn more about the women who were motivated by desperation. McCracken references two women in particular who rid themselves of abusive family members, but they seem like narrative outliers to be pitied rather than women with stories of their own.
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- DontKnowDontCare
- 05-27-23
Time jumps make it hard to follow
Give it a go.
This was an interesting story made more so by the knowledge of its basis on real events. As noted by the author, EVERYTHING in quotes was actually said, and only where a blank needed to be filled in was there potential fiction.
That said, unfortunately the timeline seemed to jump around quite a bit. Instead od picking up where another leaves off, there is a backtracking that made the storytelling jumpy and hard to follow- a fact made worse after I switched to audible. (I have more time to listen than to read).
In sum, I would recommend it to others, but if you zone out while reading or do so amidst distractions, be prepared to go back and clarify who/what/when the events involve.
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- Chandelle
- 12-30-23
Good Story!
Well researched true crime history on a story I had not heard of. Definently recommend
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- Cara
- 07-25-24
Didn’t keep my attention
I liked much of it but I found it hard to keep my attention at times.
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- Anon
- 04-05-23
More like historical fiction
More words dedicated to Aunt Suzy’s body than to her crimes. I would not recommend this audiobook.
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