The “engrossing, thoroughly researched look at women who are in romantic relationships with incarcerated men”—fully updated with twenty-first-century cases (Publishers Weekly). In 1991, Sheila Isenberg’s classic study Women Who Love Men Who Kill asked the provocative question, “Why do women fall in love with convicted murderers?” Now, Isenberg returns to the same question in the age of smart phones, social media, mass shootings, and modern prison dating. The result is a compelling psychological study of prison passion in the new millennium. Isenberg conducts extensive interviews with women who seek relationships with convicted killers, as well as conversations with psychiatrists, social workers, and prison officials. She shows that many of these women know exactly what they are getting into—yet they are willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of a love without hope, promise, or consummation. This edition of Women Who Love Men Who Kill includes gripping new case studies and an absorbing look at how the digital age is revolutionizing this phenomenon. Meet the young women writing “fan fiction” featuring America’s most sadistic murderers; the killer serving consecutive life sentences for strangling his wife and smothering his toddler daughters—and the women who visit him in prison; the high-powered journalist who fell in love and risked it all for “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli; and many other women absorbed in online and real-life dalliances with their killer men.

30 years after she first asked the question, "Why do women fall in love with convicted murderers?," Sheila Isenberg answers it anew in the age of the internet, smart phones, social media, mass shootings, celebrity worship of murderers, and modern prison dating At once disturbing and fascinating, Women Who Love Men Who Kill is a compelling psychological study of prison passion in the new millennium. Through extensive research and interviews with women who seek relationships with convicted killers through snail and e-mail, and through conversations with psychiatrists, social workers, and prison officials, Isenberg sheds light on why these women are drawn into relationships with incarcerated outcasts. Many of the women vulnerable to these relationships know exactly what they are getting into. But they are willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of a love without hope or promise, or consummation. Updated and revised since its original publication, this second edition of Women Who Love Men Who Kill includes gripping new case studies and an absorbing look at how the digital age is revolutionizing this phenomenon. Meet the young women writing "fan fiction" featuring America's most sadistic murderers; the killer serving consecutive life sentences for strangling his wife and smothering his toddler daughters--and the women who visit him in prison; the high-powered journalist who fell in love and risked it all for "Pharma Bro" Martin Shkrelli; and many other women absorbed in online and real-life dalliances with their killer men.

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were a revolutionary period in the lives of women, and the shifting perceptions of women and their role in society were equally apparent in the courtroom. Women Who Kill Men examines eighteen sensational cases of women on trial for murder from 1870 to 1958. The fascinating details of these murder trials, documented in court records and embellished newspaper coverage, mirrored the changing public image of women. Although murder was clearly outside the norm for standard female behavior, most women and their attorneys relied on gendered stereotypes and language to create their defense and sometimes to leverage their status in a patriarchal system. Those who could successfully dress and act the part of the victim were most often able to win the sympathies of the jury. Gender mattered. And though the norms shifted over time, the press, attorneys, and juries were all informed by contemporary gender stereotypes.

A study of women murderers in America from precolonial times to the present reveals a social history of the United States in terms of the women who murdered and their crimes.

A genre-bending feminist account of four Chilean women who committed the double transgression of murder, violating not only criminal law but also the invisible laws of gender. Women Who Kill: Four Crimes Retold analyzes four homicides carried out by Chilean women over the course of the twentieth century. Drawing on her training as a lawyer, Alia Trabucco Zerán offers a nuanced close reading of their lives and crimes, foregoing sensationalism in order to dissect how all four were both perpetrators of violent acts and victims of another, more insidious kind of violence. This radical retelling challenges the archetype of the woman murderer and reveals another narrative, one as disturbing and provocative as the transgressions themselves: What makes women lash out against the restraints of gendered domesticity, and how do we—readers, viewers, the media, the art world, the political establishment—treat them when they do? Expertly intertwining true crime, critical essay, and research diary, International Booker Prize finalist Alia Trabucco Zerán (The Remainder), in a translation by Sophie Hughes, brings an overdue feminist perspective to the study of deviant women.

A powerful collection of stories about women who murdered—for revenge, for love, and even for pleasure—rife with historical details that will have any true crime junkie on the edge of their seat In every tragic story, men are expected to be the killers. There are countless studies and works of art made about male violence. However, when women are featured in stories about murder, they are rarely portrayed as predators. They’re the prey. This common dynamic is one of the reasons that women are so enthralled by female murderers. They do the things that women aren’t supposed to do and live the lives that women aren’t supposed to want: lives that are impulsive and angry and messy and inconvenient. Maybe we feel bad about loving them, but we eat it up just the same. Residing squarely in the middle of a Venn diagram of feminism and true crime, She Kills Me tells the story of 40 women who murdered out of necessity, fear, revenge, and even for pleasure.