Tender Murderers: Women Who Kill [Paperback]

Trina Robbins (Author), Max Allan Collins (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2003

"She wasn’t even five feet tall, weighed 90 pounds, wrote poetry, and died young, riddled with bullets and with a machine gun in her lap." The infamous Bonnie Parker, immortalized in the movie Bonnie and Clyde, is only one of a select group of 20 women killers whose stories are told in Tender Murderers. Others include Charlotte Corday, of Marat-Sade fame; Belle Starr, the "Petticoat Terror of the Plains"; and Phoolan Devi, India’s "bandit queen," who died as she lived. Trina Robbins, award-winning author and cartoonist, even includes a section on "Women Who Missed," such as Valerie Solanas, founder of the Society for Cutting Up Men and attempted assassin of Andy Warhol, and Amy Fisher, the "Long Island Lolita." From murderous moms and molls to plucky pirates and Appalachian ax-handlers, Tender Murderers is a rogue's gallery of fascinating female killers. Photographs are included.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In these 20 compact case studies of crime's most fascinating and rare breed, Robbins (Eternally Bad) delves into the psyches and motivations behind such famous lethal ladies as Aileen Wuornos, Jean Harris and Squeaky Fromme. The appealing format, divided into five chapters, including modern and historical femmes fatales and bandit queens, is enhanced throughout by photos, artists' interpretations, ballads, quotes and trivia boxes. Robbins's true-crime writing style blends well with her often sarcastic and humorous interjections, such as describing Bonnie Parker of Bonnie and Clyde infamy as a "cute 'n' perky little thang." She indulges in some armchair psychoanalysis: "Long Island Lolita" Amy Fisher was just "looking for a loving father, one who didn't hit her." Though Robbins offers no single overall explanation as to what drives these strong women, whom she finds "perversely admirable," readers, whether drawn by this genre or the sexy 1940s style cover, will find the author's exploration of the question entertaining.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Conari Pr (January 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573248215
• ISBN-13: 978-1573248211
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 0.5 x 7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,440,441 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Shallow Gal July 7, 2003

By David A. Kulczyk

Format:Paperback

Tender Murderers � Women who kill by Trina Robbins is a puff piece. Twenty error filled chapters written with a wink and a nudge. Robbins couldn�t of picked easier murderers to write about and they have all been written about before with more detail. Her section on Dorothea Puente, the Sacramento rooming house murderer was almost fiction. She also left out tons of information on the Benders. This book is fine if you are a novice, but anyone who has read Bloodletters and Badmen by Jay Robert Nash will know more about any of the criminals than what Robbins wrote in this book.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Full of More Fiction Than Fact April 25, 2010

By Belle

Format:Paperback

As a historian studying Depression Era criminals such as Bonnie and Clyde, and drawn to the sensationalized Belle Starr, I thought I would pick this up as a fun, condensed read of other female outlaws. To my surprise, Robbins account of many things Bonnie and the Barrow Gang done are completely wrong. Such as the in the Joplin, Missouri shootout that Blanche Barrow put her white dog in her pocket, when in fact Snowball was never found. She also accuses Bonnie of murder, when in fact it has never been proven that she killed anyone. If Robbins cannot get the chapter on Bonnie Parker right, I wonder how the other ladies featured fare. Her writing style also comes off as haughty and snotty. I would skip this one, unless you enjoy reading more fiction than fact.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Delightfully poisonous read June 8, 2003

By Greg Goodsell

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a delightful read: learn all about Belle Guiness, the homesteading murderess who planted her various lonely hearts suitors all along her farm; read about Dorothy Puente, the malevolent landlord who seemed to be a benevolent caretaker of the elderly by day, murderous, mercenary monster by night; and who can forget Lizzie Borden, Bonnie Parker and Charlotte Corday?

Some of my favorites are mssing such as Caril Fugate and Myra Hindley, but by Robbins intent and design, she concentrated on women who acted alone without the influence of men. It's still a good read.