Woollett has researched her subject matter well, but captures the individual voices of her deluded heroines with mixed success. Sometimes the reader is completely absorbed, yet for the most part Woollett’s gaze remains emotionally uninvolved. There is a clinical detachment to the writing, even depicting horrifying bloodshed or rape. A short glossary summarises the crimes, but confusion occasionally arises due to the reader’s lack of familiarity with the cases, which the narrative does not dispel. This is dark, disturbing stuff and it raises unanswered questions about the women’s moral culpability and autonomy, and the addictive nature of love and desire. One wonders how accurate Woollett’s portrayals are and what the women who are still alive would make of them. For a book about obsessive love, the relationships seem curiously distanced and unengaged.