Book Review | ‘Women Who Kill’ Illustrates 19 Female Murderers Throughout History

Any­one who knows me knows that I love true crime. Doc­u­men­taries, long form arti­cles, pod­casts… it’s the type of sto­ries I enjoy con­sum­ing in my free time. So, imag­ine my delight when I was intro­duced to a book that com­bined illus­tra­tion and true crime. Called Women Who Kill, it’s writ­ten by Anna Davies and illus­trat­ed by Sarah Tanat-Jones.

The book fea­tures the sto­ries of 19 female mur­der­ers through­out his­to­ry. And we’re not talk­ing about killers who lived just dur­ing the last 100 years, either. Women Who Kill goes way back to 54AD and intro­duces us to Agrip­pina, a “noto­ri­ous and charis­mat­ic beau­ty of Ancient Roman aris­to­crat­ic stock.” Although orig­i­nal­ly exiled from Rome by her broth­er Caligula—therefore sep­a­rat­ed from her son, Nero—she came back after Caligu­la was mur­dered. Her uncle, Claudius, replaced him. After Agrip­pina returned, she and Claudius “fos­tered a very close rela­tion­ship” and even­tu­al­ly mar­ried. Long sto­ry short, Claudius over­looked Nero as his suc­ces­sor to the throne, opt­ing instead for his own son Bri­tan­ni­cus. Agrip­pina was unhap­py about this devel­op­ment and poi­soned Claudius with a plate of poi­soned mush­rooms. After­wards, Nero assumed the throne.

Oth­er pro­files include Aileen  Wuornos, who is rel­a­tive­ly famous for going on a shoot­ing spree that killed sev­er­al men. If she sounds famil­iar, it might be because Char­l­ize Theron depict­ed her in the movie Mon­ster. 

I real­ly enjoyed read­ing Women Who Kill—and because this is an illus­tra­tion focused blog, after all—loved the accom­pa­ny­ing illus­tra­tions. Cre­at­ed in a lim­it­ed col­or palette, they cap­ture the essence of the wom­en’s crimes. In some instances, we see the fig­ures whole face and can look into their tired eyes. But, some­times it’s more effec­tive to not show their face but their body lan­guage. The case of Pauline Park­er and Juli­et Hulme, a duo who killed togeth­er, the illus­tra­tion has them hold­ing each oth­er close and car­ry­ing the mur­der weapon. We don’t need to see their expres­sion to read that it was an intense—and ulti­mate­ly sick—relationship.

This is a great book if you’re a true crime fan or know some­one who is. Women Who Kill is now avail­able on Ama­zon.

Looking for a true crime read? The illustrated book Women Who Kill tells the stories of 19 female murderers throughout history.