Book for review courtesy of NetGalley ~ Little A ~ 10 / 8
Laurie Notaro's novel The Murderess tells the story of Winnie Ruth Judd, who, in 1931, murdered her two best friends and then shoved their bodies into trunks. Ruth was attractive, but prone to bouts of mental illness. She married young to a
W W I veteran many years her senior ; they had one child. Her husband deposited her in Phoenix, Arizona where she worked as a medical secretary. She began an affair with Jack Halloran, a well-known playboy in Phoenix. She made friends with two young women, Anne Le Roi and Hedvig Samuelson and they also had an affair with Jack Halloran.
Was Ruth's motivation strictly jealousy, or was she in the throes of a mental health episode? Notaro's prose is brutally honest and does not hold back in the descriptions of the state of the bodies and the gruesome nature of Judd's crime. The Murderess offers a glimpse into the psyche of a damaged young woman and the reasons she would commit such a horrible crime.