The Husband Poisoner
Suburban Women Who Killed in Post-World War II Sydney
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The Husband Poisoner
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Narrated by:
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Toby Webster
About this listen
Shortlisted for the 2021 Ned Kelly Award for True Crime.
Shocking real-life stories of murderous women who used rat poison to rid themselves of husbands and other inconvenient family members. For listeners of compelling history and true crime, from critically acclaimed, award-winning author Tanya Bretherton.
After World War II, Sydney experienced a crime wave that was chillingly calculated. Discontent mixed with despair, greed with callous disregard. Women who had lost their wartime freedoms headed back into the kitchen with sinister intent and the household poison thallium, normally used to kill rats, was repurposed to kill husbands and other inconvenient family members.
Yvonne Fletcher disposed of two husbands. Caroline Grills cheerfully poisoned her stepmother, a family friend, her brother and his wife. Unlike arsenic or cyanide, thallium is colourless, odourless and tasteless; victims were misdiagnosed as insane malingerers or ill due to other reasons. And once one death was attributed to natural causes, it was all too easy for an aggrieved woman to kill again.
This is the story of a series of murders that struck at the very heart of domestic life. It's the tale of women who looked for deadly solutions to what they saw as impossible situations. The Husband Poisoner documents the reasons behind the choices these women made—and their terrible outcomes.
©2022 Tanya Bretherton, PhD (P)2022 Hachette Australia Pty LtdListeners also enjoyed...
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Enlightening, entertaining and exceptionally done
- By Karol Heim on 02-09-24
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Death in the Air
- The True Story of a Serial Killer, the Great London Smog, and the Strangling of a City
- By: Kate Winkler Dawson
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 422
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 384
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 382
A real-life thriller in the vein of The Devil in the White City, Kate Winkler Dawson's debut, Death in the Air, is a gripping, historical narrative of a serial killer, an environmental disaster, and an iconic city struggling to regain its footing. In winter 1952, London automobiles and thousands of coal-burning hearths belched particulate matter into the air. But the smog that descended on December fifth of 1952 was different; it was a type that held the city hostage for five long days.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Interesting
- By irene on 11-27-17
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The Poisoner's Handbook
- Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York
- By: Deborah Blum
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,562
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 1,940
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,929
In The Poisoner's Handbook, Blum draws from highly original research to track the fascinating, perilous days when a pair of forensic scientists began their trailblazing chemical detective work, fighting to end an era when untraceable poisons offered an easy path to the perfect crime.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating book marred by production errors
- By Reagan Kelly on 03-02-10
By: Deborah Blum
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Last Dance, Last Chance
- And Other True Cases (Ann Rule's Crime Files, Book 8)
- By: Ann Rule
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 14 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 280
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 236
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 229
Ann Rule presents her 8th collection of crime stories drawn from her private files - and featuring the riveting case of a fraudulent doctor whose lifelong deceptions had deadly consequences. Dr. Anthony Pignataro was a cosmetic surgeon and a famed medical researcher whose flashy red Lamborghini and flamboyant lifestyle in western New York State suggested a highly successful career. But no one was safe if they got in his way. With scalpel, drugs, and arsenic, he betrayed every oath a physician makes - until his own schemes backfired.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Enjoyed the stories
- By Grace on 05-13-14
By: Ann Rule
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The Complete Jack the Ripper
- By: Donald Rumbelow
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 14 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 136
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 116
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Story4 out of 5 stars 115
Laying out all the evidence in the most comprehensive summary ever written about the Ripper, this book, by a London police officer and crime authority, has subjected every theory - including those that have emerged in recent years-to the same deep scrutiny. The author also examines the mythology surrounding the case and provides some fascinating insights into the portrayal of the Ripper on stage and screen and on the printed page. More seriously, he also examines the horrifying parallel crimes of the Düsseldorf Ripper and the Yorkshire Ripper.
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3 out of 5 stars
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catch the facts if you can
- By Alexandra on 11-17-19
By: Donald Rumbelow
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Butcher's Work
- True Crime Tales of American Murder and Madness
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 120
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 104
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 104
A Civil War veteran who perpetrated one of the most ghastly mass slaughters in the annals of U.S. crime. A nineteenth-century female serial killer whose victims included three husbands and six of her own children. A Gilded Age “Bluebeard” who did away with as many as fifty wives throughout the country. A decorated World War I hero who orchestrated a murder that stunned Jazz Age America.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Another necessary work by Schector
- By Brandon on 12-27-22
By: Harold Schechter
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Murder, Misadventure and Miserable Ends
- By: Dr. Catie Gilchrist
- Narrated by: Emma Grant Williams
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 73
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 64
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 64
Most of us today rarely see a dead body. In 19th-century Sydney, when health was precarious and workplaces and the busy city streets were often dangerous, witnessing a death was rather common. And any death that was sudden or suspicious would be investigated by the coroner. Henry Shiell was the Sydney city coroner from 1866 to 1889. In the course of his unusually long career, he delved into the lives, loves, crimes, homes, and workplaces of colonial Sydneysiders.
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5 out of 5 stars
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very interesting and enlightening
- By Barbara J Allison on 08-29-19
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The Radium Girls
- The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women
- By: Kate Moore
- Narrated by: Angela Brazil
- Length: 15 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 5,564
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 5,030
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5,021
The year was 1917. As a war raged across the world, young American women flocked to work, painting watches, clocks, and military dials with a special luminous substance made from radium. It was a fun job, lucrative and glamorous - the girls themselves shone brightly in the dark, covered head to toe in the dust from the paint. They were the radium girls. As the years passed, the women began to suffer from mysterious and crippling illnesses.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A simple way to improve the robotic narration
- By B. C. French on 06-07-17
By: Kate Moore
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Midnight in Peking
- How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China
- By: Paul French
- Narrated by: Erik Singer
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 437
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 385
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Story4 out of 5 stars 386
Peking in 1937 is a heady mix of privilege and scandal, opulence and opium dens, rumors and superstition. The Japanese are encircling the city, and the discovery of Pamela Werner's body sends a shiver through already nervous Peking. Is it the work of a madman? One of the ruthless Japanese soldiers now surrounding the city? With the suspect list growing and clues sparse, two detectives - one British and one Chinese - race against the clock to solve the crime before the Japanese invade and Peking as they know it is gone forever.
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5 out of 5 stars
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When history can be stranger than fiction
- By Jeremy on 01-04-13
By: Paul French
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Behind the Beautiful Forevers
- Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
- By: Katherine Boo
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,286
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,967
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,968
In this breathtaking book by Pulitzer Prize winner Katherine Boo, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human through the dramatic story of families striving toward a better life in Annawadi, a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport. As India starts to prosper, the residents of Annawadi are electric with hope. Abdul, an enterprising teenager, sees “a fortune beyond counting” in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away.
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4 out of 5 stars
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An Antidote for Shantaram
- By Dr. on 06-14-12
By: Katherine Boo
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Death of a Dissident
- Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov Mysteries Series, Book 1
- By: Stuart M. Kaminsky
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 17
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 14
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 14
Aleksander Granovsky has dedicated his life to exposing the brutality of the Russian penal system. In two days, he will be tried for the crime of smuggling essays to the West. It is a show trial, and there is no doubt he will be convicted and executed, yet before he dies, he intends to tell the truth one more time. But this is Moscow, where death is never heroic. While writing his final speech in his government flat, Granovsky is surprised by an assassin, who pierces his heart with the point of a rusty scythe.
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Psycho USA
- Famous American Killers You Never Heard Of
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 211
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 195
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Story4 out of 5 stars 193
In the horrifying annals of American crime, the infamous names of brutal killers such as Bundy, Dahmer, Gacy, and Berkowitz are writ large in the imaginations of a public both horrified and hypnotized by their monstrous, murderous acts. But for every celebrity psychopath who's gotten ink for spilling blood, there's a bevy of all-but-forgotten homicidal fiends studding the bloody margins of US history.
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4 out of 5 stars
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True crime enthusiast's dream
- By Athelsten on 08-24-17
By: Harold Schechter
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The Battered Body Beneath the Flagstones, and Other Victorian Scandals
- By: Michelle Morgan
- Narrated by: Anne Dover
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 226
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 203
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Story4 out of 5 stars 204
A grisly book dedicated to the crimes, perversions and outrages of Victorian England, covering high-profile offences - such as the murder of actor William Terriss, whose stabbing at the stage door of the Adelphi Theatre in 1897 filled the front pages for many weeks - as well as lesser-known transgressions that scandalised the Victorian era. The tales include murders and violent crimes but also feature scandals that merely amused the Victorians.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Doesn’t question it’s sources enough
- By Emily Stoneking on 11-27-18
By: Michelle Morgan
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A Woman of Firsts
- The midwife who built a hospital and changed the world
- By: Edna Adan Ismail, Wendy Holden
- Narrated by: Edna Adan Ismail
- Length: 13 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 21
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 20
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Story5 out of 5 stars 20
Edna saw first-hand how poor healthcare, lack of education and ancient superstitions had devastating effects on Somaliland’s people, especially its women. When she suffered the trauma of FGM herself as a young girl at the bidding of her mother, Edna’s determination was set.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Author Read and So Moving
- By Clementa Frederiksen on 03-04-24
By: Edna Adan Ismail, and others
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Down Among the Dead Men
- A Year in the Life of a Mortuary Technician
- By: Michelle Williams, Keith McCarthy
- Narrated by: Liz Holliss
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 165
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 148
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Story4 out of 5 stars 151
Michelle Williams, an attractive young woman with close family ties and an active social life, describes her first extraordinary year in her unusual new job as a mortuary technician. It’s a year in which, with innate good humour, she encounters death at its most tragic, bizarre, and hilarious. Her tale, neither gruesome nor sad, is enlivened by a range of colourful and eccentric characters, from pathologists and coroners to hospital porters and undertakers, giving us a glimpse of life - and death - that few of us will ever experience.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Things you never wanted to know about a mortuary
- By Martin on 09-25-12
By: Michelle Williams, and others
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Perfect Poison
- A Female Serial Killer's Deadly Medicine
- By: M. William Phelps
- Narrated by: J. Charles
- Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 212
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 141
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 141
In Northampton, Massachusetts, at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Kristen Gilbert was known as a hardworking, dedicated nurse - so why were her patients dying? So many emergencies and sudden deaths occurred while Kristen made her rounds on Ward C that her colleagues jokingly called her the "Angel of Death".
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4 out of 5 stars
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Men are naive
- By Veruka on 09-15-12
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The Life and Loves of a She-Devil
- By: Fay Weldon
- Narrated by: Gemma Dawson
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 74
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Story4 out of 5 stars 64
In New York Magazine, Rhoda Koenig calls The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, "...a novel of blazingly hot revenge, one that amply illustrates the saying about heaven having no rage like love turned to hate, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."
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5 out of 5 stars
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Sweet, brutal, and over the top revenge!!
- By Wayne on 04-10-17
By: Fay Weldon