From author Laurie Notaro comes The Murderess, a haunting true-crime novel about Winnie Ruth Judd, one of the twentieth century’s most notorious and enigmatic killers.
In This Spotlight On The Murderess
About The Murderess by Laurie Notaro
It’s October 1931. When Winnie Ruth Judd arrives at the Los Angeles train station from Phoenix, her shipping trunks catch the attention of a suspicious porter. By the time they’re pried open, revealing the dismembered bodies of two women inside, Ruth has disappeared into the crowd.
The search for, and eventual apprehension of, the Trunk Murderess quickly becomes a headline-making sensation. Even the Phoenix murder house is a sideshow attraction. The one question on everyone’s lips: How could a twenty-six-year-old reverend’s daughter and doctor’s wife—petite, pretty, well educated, and poised—commit such a heinous act on two people she’d called “my dearest friends in the world”? Everyone has their theories and judgments, but no one knows the whole truth.
What unfolds in this gripping work of true-crime fiction is a collision of jealousy, drug addiction, insanity, rage, and inescapable choices. At its heart, a condemned and tragic mystery woman whose trial—and its shocking twists—will make history. The Murderess is a bonechilling tale of crime.
Source: Publisher
Publisher: Little A
Publication Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN-13: 9781662512216
Praise for The Murderess by Laurie Notaro
“Laurie Notaro portrays this exciting sliver of time with historical accuracy, providing an authentic glimpse of the era (including photographs), and then adds a pump of adrenaline by including dialogue and drama of her own imagination, creating a captivating historical fiction.”—Kirkus Reviews
“[Laurie Notaro] leverages her…keen eye for human foibles in an ambitious fictionalized account. [An] action-packed, character-rich romp.”—Publishers Weekly
“Best known for her offbeat essays on contemporary topics, Laurie Notaro breaks new literary ground and demonstrates an intuitive sense of narrative and indelible appreciation for history’s ironies.”—Booklist
“Fascinating…Well-researched novelization…A compelling story.”—USA Today
About Laurie Notaro
Laurie Notaro was born in Brooklyn, New York, then spent the remainder of her formative years in Phoenix, AZ, where she created something of a checkered past.
She is the New York Times best-selling author of the humor memoirs The Idiot Girls Action Adventure Club, Autobiography of a Fat Bride, I Love Everybody, and Housebroken, along with numerous others; two humor novels; and Crossing the Horizon, a novel of historical fiction that tells the true story of once famous and now forgotten aviatrices prior to Amelia Earhart that vied to become the first female pilot to cross the Atlantic.
Laurie Notaro has been fired from seven jobs, laid off from three, and voluntarily liberated from one. Despite all that, she has managed to write a number of New York Times bestsellers. She has a cute dog, a nice husband and misses Mexican food like it was her youth. She resides in Eugene, Oregon, where according to her mother—who refuses to visit—she sleeps in a trailer in the woods.
You can connect further with Laurie Notaro on her website, on Facebook, Instagram, and X.
Titles by Laurie Notaro
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