Bad Girls Do It!: An Encyclopedia of Female Murderers [Paperback]

Michael Newton (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Jack the Ripper may be more notorious, but while he was busy killing five prostitutes in the alleyways of Victorian London, another Victorian murderer, Jane Toppan, was brought in on charges of having killed close to 100 people in Connecticut. Toppan said in court, "That is my ambition, to have killed more people--more helpless people--than any man or woman who has ever lived." Bad Girls Do It! has a jocular title and cover illustration, and Michael Newton (author of Hunting Humans) occasionally indulges in macabre humor.

Nonetheless, these 182 case histories of female multiple murderers are packed with well-researched details. You will read about "angels of death" (nurses who kill), "black widows," lethal landladies, and murderous moms. Many of them are little known, such as Rachal David, a religious fanatic who tossed her seven children off an 11th-story hotel balcony in Salt Lake City in 1978, while a screaming crowd watched from below.

Product Details

• Paperback: 195 pages
• Publisher: Loompanics Unlimited (November 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559501049
• ISBN-13: 978-1559501040
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,429,512 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

A California native, Michael Newton has published 215 books under his own name and various pseudonyms since 1977. He began writing professionally as a "ghost" for author Don Pendleton on the best-selling Executioner series and continues his work on that series today. With 104 episodes published to date, Newton has nearly tripled the number of Mack Bolan novels completed by creator Pendleton himself.

Newton's first book under his own name was Monsters, Mysteries and Man (1979), a survey of unexplained phenomena for younger readers. While 156 of Newton's published books have been novels--including westerns, political thrillers and psychological suspense--he is best known for nonfiction, primarily true crime and reference books.

His firearms manual for writers, Armed and Dangerous (1990), remains a best-seller for Writer's Digest Books in its 8th printing. Newton's Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (Facts on File, 2000) is currently in its second edition. His history of the Florida Ku Klux Klan, The Invisible Empire (2001), won the Florida Historical Society's 2002 Rembert Patrick Award for Best Book in Florida History. His Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology was just named as one of twelve books on the American Library Association's 2006 List of Outstanding Reference Sources. Newton's shorter work includes horror fiction, true crime articles and case histories for Court TV's Crime Library online.

He is a member of several organizations, including the Centre for Fortean Zoology, the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club and Feral Cat Friends Inc.

His 24 upcoming books, scheduled for release through 2011, include 8 novels and 16 nonfiction works. He lives in Nashville, Indiana.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and horrible, this is an important record!, September 16, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Bad Girls Do It!: An Encyclopedia of Female Murderers (Paperback)

This collection of macabre women is certainly a welcome addition to the vast sea of books on [primarily male] serial killers. Still, it's rather encyclopedic in nature, and if you read it straight through (as I did) you're likely to be overwhelmed, nauseated, and left wanting more. Newton covers a lot of ground, but I wish he would've been more in-depth on some cases. All in all, though, it's a striking book and well worth the cost. Plus the cover is snazzy and will upset your mother.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent reference on all varieties of female murderers, August 29, 2004

By 

J. D. Ripper (Athens, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bad Girls Do It!: An Encyclopedia of Female Murderers (Paperback)

The cover art on this book is deceiving: a brightly colored cartoon panel of a 1950s-looking heavily made-up woman smoking. There is nothing cartoonish, sleazy, or sordid about this book. This is a serious, thorough reference work devoted to female mulitple murderers [mass and serial]. It deserves to be called encyclopedic; it contains case descriptions of all the major female serial killers [and more than a few minor ones] and a wide spectrum of female mass killers, known and unknown.

Each woman's case is described decently--these aren't capsule descriptions [though some of them are quite short]. The writing is matter-of-fact and there are no illustrations in the text. Recently, I came across a reference to Martha Woods, one of the first women prosecuted for Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy in the US. Her case is obscure but I found an entry for her in this book. It is that kind of reference work.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars mystifying, November 15, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (kansas USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bad Girls Do It!: An Encyclopedia of Female Murderers (Paperback)

As one of only a few females i know who are interested in the serial killer, i found this book hard to quit reading, i was enthralled in many cases, only to find myself wanting to read a book several hundred pages long on the murderess. Some cases left me feeling like he was fluffing up his book. However, some other entries left me cringing and in awe. I have wondered where all the female murderers were kept.... Michael Newton unlocked that door for me can't wait to read Hunting Humans