America's First Female Serial Killer - by Mary Kay McBrayer (Paperback)

About the Book

The nurse from hell: Always cheerful, helpful, and sweet, nurse Jane Toppan was the last person you would suspect to administer a dose of death. When countless patients sought treatment for minor ailments and ended up dead, it was often thought accidental, due to the shortcomings of medicine in the late 1800s. But behind the jolly mask, there was a monster that was years in the making. America's First Female Serial Killer is an imagined retelling of Jane Toppan--one of the deadliest poisoners of all time--and readers will get a fly-on-the-wall perspective of her life and crimes that will leave you up at night.

Book Synopsis

The nurse from hell: Always cheerful, helpful, and sweet, nurse Jane Toppan was the last person you would suspect to administer a dose of death. When countless patients sought treatment for minor ailments and ended up dead, it was often thought accidental, due to the shortcomings of medicine in the late 1800s. But behind the jolly mask, there was a monster that was years in the making. America's First Female Serial Killer is an imagined retelling of Jane Toppan-one of the deadliest poisoners of all time-and readers will get a fly-on-the-wall perspective of her life and crimes that will leave you up at night.

Review Quotes

"In America's First Female Serial Killer, Mary Kay McBrayer brilliantly presents one of the most fascinating serial killers in American history--and not just because the killer was a woman. McBrayer digs into the troubled life of Jane Toppan, who is by far one of the most disturbing 'angels of death' found in the annals of murder. What McBrayer offers us is a complex--and terrifying--portrait of a killer who seemed almost doomed from birth." --Kate Winkler Dawson, author of American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI

"Mary Kay McBrayer has written a thoughtful and inspired take on one of the greatest poisoners in history. America's First Female Serial Killer: Jane Toppan and the Making of a Monster seethes with rage, compulsion, and a righteous condemnation of the servitude of the underclass. A chilling and sobering read." --Robert Levy, author of The Glittering World and Anaïs Nin at the Grand Guignol