The Angel Makers: Arsenic, a Midwife, and Modern History's Most Astonishing Murder Ring

by Patti McCracken Narrated by Gabra Zackman

Overview

The Angel Makers*is a true-crime story like no other-a 1920s midwife who may have been the century's most prolific killer leading a murder ring of women responsible for the deaths of at least 160 men.

The horror occurred in a rustic farming enclave in modern-day Hungary. To look at the unlikely lineup of murderesses-village wives, mothers, and daughters-was to come to the shocking realization that this could have happened anywhere, and to anyone. At the center of it all was a sharp-minded village midwife, a “smiling Buddha” known as Auntie Suzy, who distilled arsenic from flypaper and distributed it to the women of Nagyrév. “Why are you bothering with him?” Auntie Suzy would ask, as she produced an arsenic-filled vial from her apron pocket.*In the beginning, a great many used the deadly solution to finally be free of cruel and abusive spouses.

But as the number of dead bodies grew without consequence, the killers grew bolder. With each vial of poison emptied, a new reason surfaced to drain yet another. Some women disposed of sickly relatives. Some used arsenic as “inheritance powder” to secure land and houses. For more than fifteen years, the unlikely murderers aided death unfettered and tended to it as if it were simply another chore-spooning doses of arsenic into soup and wine, stirring it into coffee and brandy. By the time their crimes were discovered, hundreds were feared dead.

Anonymous notes brought the crimes to light in 1929. As a skillful prosecutor hungry for justice ran the investigation, newsmen from around the world-including the New York Times-poured in to cover the dramatic events as they unfolded.

The Angel Makers*captures in expertly researched detail the entirety of this harrowing story, from the early murders to the final hanging-the story of one of the most sensational and astonishing murder rings in all of modern history.

Editorial Reviews

MAY 2023 - AudioFile

Gabra Zackman artfully narrates this incredible true-crime story from Hungary in the 1920s. Zackman balances the historical details with the medical ones in recounting how a rural midwife started a killing spree that was carried out by women of all ages who poisoned people with arsenic. Zackman makes this interesting story even more intriguing by telling it in a conversational tone that fans of true-crime podcasts will recognize. She makes the most of the infamous "Aunty Suzy," the ringleader in this macabre tale. Listeners will be hanging on every word as they hear of the near domino effect the use of arsenic had on the women in Aunty Suzy's sphere. For fans of true crime, this is a treat of a listening experience. M.R. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

★ 01/23/2023

Journalist McCracken debuts with a compulsively readable account of a group of women who operated a murder ring for years during the early 20th century in the Hungarian village of Nagyrév. At the center of the ring was a squat, pipe-smoking midwife known as Auntie Suzy, who carried arsenic in her pocket and doled it out to women who were tired of their abusive spouses and sickly children. After a series of anonymous notes to authorities in 1929 and decades of mysterious deaths, 16 women went on trial for poisoning their husbands and sons in a case that riveted the world press. They were all convicted: three of them were hanged, and three—including Auntie Suzy—died by suicide rather than face life in prison. It’s thought, the authors writes, that over the years hundreds of men of Nagyrév were slipped arsenic into their brandy, soup, or goulash by the women in their lives. McCracken grounds the work in archival documents and trial transcriptions, and dramatically recreates scenes for which there’s no documentation, a liberty, she admits in a note, she has taken “with deep respect for the integrity of this case.” This is a must for true crime fans. Agent: Joe Veltre, Gersh Agency. (Mar.)

From the Publisher

"[C]ompulsively readable . . . This is a must for true crime fans." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"[S]imply excellent. The storytelling is dramatic and compassionate; unlike works of crime nonfiction that relate facts at a journalistic remove, this book feels like it was written by someone who cares deeply about the victims of the crimes." — Booklist (starred review)

“In 1929 a small Hungarian village was revealed to have been at the heart of a mass murder spree in which local women got rid of unwanted relatives by poisoning them with arsenic. Patti McCracken brings to life this long-forgotten tale in a grimly gripping narrative.” — Financial Times Best Summer Books of 2023: History

“The Angel Makers carries readers into an era of powerlessness, when women had scant recourse against a daily onslaught of violent men, exhausting poverty, and relentless fecundity. The women's desperate attempts to assert control over their own lives are both understandable and horrifying, the whole stew depicted with compassion and a journalist's eye for detail.” 
— Janine Latus, New York Times–bestselling author of If I Am Missing or Dead

"In The Angel Makers, Patti McCracken takes you on a historical ride, rich with velvety description, through 1920s rural Hungary, where women used serial murder by arsenic to solve real-time problems of poverty, sickness, abuse, and sometimes greed. Horrifying yet fascinating." — Caitlin Rother, New York Times–bestselling author of Death on Ocean Boulevard

“When women in the sleepy, remote village of Nagyrév, Hungary, felt overburdened or abused by their husbands, they went to Auntie Suzy for advice. The midwife had a simple solution to every problem—the arsenic-filled vial in her apron pocket. In The Angel Makers, Patti McCracken brings the sights, sounds, and smells of the farming village back to life as she painstakingly reconstructs one of the most infamous mass murders in history.” — Patrick Perry, editor-in-chief of The Saturday Evening Post magazine

“The Angel Makers is a macabre tale told well, in riveting true crime fashion.” — Vineyard Gazette

New York Times bestselling author Caitlin Rother

In The Angel Makers, Patti McCracken takes you on a historical ride, rich with velvety description, through 1920s rural Hungary, where women used serial murder by arsenic to solve real-time problems of poverty, sickness, abuse, and sometimes greed. Horrifying yet fascinating.”

Library Journal

02/01/2023

Award-winning journalist McCracken's debut depicts the shocking true story of one of history's largest murder rings. McCracken begins with the difficult job of midwives and mothers, as told through a story about a woman known as Auntie Suzy, the town's midwife and de facto doctor, who used her position and access to arsenic to help the impoverished, overburdened women in her community handle abusive husbands. Startlingly, what started as a death here and there became one of the world's largest mass murders with more than 160 male victims. McCracken's background as a journalist is clear in her approach to the story and its telling. She brings to life a portrait of 1920s village life in modern-day Hungary. Readers will be transported through the story beginning with the issues plaguing local women, how the killers became emboldened over time, and the ways in which justice was brought forth, once an anonymous letter captured the attention of authorities. VERDICT True crime readers are sure to enjoy this debut. —Mattie Cook

MAY 2023 - AudioFile

Gabra Zackman artfully narrates this incredible true-crime story from Hungary in the 1920s. Zackman balances the historical details with the medical ones in recounting how a rural midwife started a killing spree that was carried out by women of all ages who poisoned people with arsenic. Zackman makes this interesting story even more intriguing by telling it in a conversational tone that fans of true-crime podcasts will recognize. She makes the most of the infamous "Aunty Suzy," the ringleader in this macabre tale. Listeners will be hanging on every word as they hear of the near domino effect the use of arsenic had on the women in Aunty Suzy's sphere. For fans of true crime, this is a treat of a listening experience. M.R. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2022-12-23
Slowly unfolding tale of death by poison in early-20th-century Hungary.

In Hungarian farm country, writes longtime journalist McCracken, spring is the time of year when farmers pull muscles, suffer accidents, and wear themselves to the bone. In a village called Nagyrév, an herbalist and midwife known as Auntie Suzy administered potions to deal with everything from diarrhea to heart palpitations. She also kept a stock of arsenic, about which she bragged to a local member of the gentry, “There is enough in here to kill one hundred men. No doctor could ever detect it.” When people, mostly very young children and middle-aged men, began to die, it helped that Auntie Suzy was the de facto doctor and coroner, ascribing death not to her medicine but to consumption and other maladies. When suspicion finally landed on her, she defiantly called herself not a murderer but “an angel maker” and then “spilled forth what was to her not a confession, but a manifesto on the role of a midwife.” Meanwhile, other women divined that poisoning was a good way to get rid of their enemies, and between 1914 and 1929, authorities believed, hundreds of victims died in Nagyrév. Some suspects walked, others swung at the end of a rope, others committed suicide. The story is not unknown, but neither has it been stretched out to this length—and yet it’s not quite complete. McCracken might have done more to tease out themes of class, racism, and sexism, and often the narrative loses dramatic tension, feeling more like a police report than a thriller. Where there is action, it is often weighted with unnecessary observations: “She sank her spoon into the meaty soup. She knew she would nap better after a hearty meal.” A judicious trimming and attention to such matters would have helped the text.

Though a tiny footnote in a violent time and place, McCracken’s story holds some small interest to true-crime buffs.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940175913348
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/14/2023
Edition description:	Unabridged

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