The Beauty Defense : : Femmes Fatales on Trial
Book - 2020 345.025 Ja, Adult Book / Nonfiction / True Crime / James, Laura 2 On Shelf No requests on this item
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Call Number: 345.025 Ja, Adult Book / Nonfiction / True Crime / James, Laura
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Westgate Branch
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Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout |
345.025 Ja | 4-week checkout | On Shelf |
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout |
Adult Book / Nonfiction / True Crime / James, Laura | 4-week checkout | On Shelf |
Introduction : The Femme Fatale -- Beulah Annan -- Elvira Barney -- Adelaide Bartlett -- Countess Linda Murri Bonmartini -- Kitty Byron -- Florence Carman -- Jessie Costello -- Susan Cummings -- Germaine d'Anglemont -- Blanca de Saulles -- Pauline Dubuisson -- Princess Fahmy -- Laura Fair -- Annie George -- Clara Smith Hamon -- Alice Hartley -- Claudine Longet -- Nellie May Madison -- Julia Morrison -- Charlotte Nash Nixon-Nirdlinger -- Grace V. Nottingham -- Madalynne Obenchain -- Beatrice Pace -- Gertrude Gibson Patterson -- Nan Patterson -- Alma Rattenbury -- Daisy Root -- Abe Sada -- Madeline Smith -- Marguerite Steinheil -- Vera Stretz -- Countess Marie O'Rourke Tarnovska -- Epilogue: The Femme Fatale Lives.
"Justice is blind, they say, but perhaps not to beauty. In supposedly dispassionate courts of law, attractive women have long avoided punishment, based largely on their looks, for cold-blooded crimes. The Beauty Defense: Femmes Fatales on Trial gathers the true stories of some of the most infamous femmes fatales in criminal history, collected by attorney and true crime historian Laura James. With cases from 1850 to 1997, these 32 examples span more than a century and cross cultures, ethnicities, and socioeconomic status. But all were so beautiful, as James demonstrates, that they got away with murder. When Madeline Smith, a Glasgow socialite, tried to end a relationship with one man to date another, her jilted lover proved difficult to shake. She solved the problem, James writes, with arsenic-laced chocolates. And in Warrenton, Virginia, mild-mannered heiress Susan Cummings gunned down her polo-playing husband, Roberto, following a disagreement. While these two women lived in different centuries and on different continents, both of their lawyers argued that they were too beautiful to be killers. And in both cases, the juries bought it. In telling the stories of Madeline Smith and Susan Cummings-and 30 others-James proves the existence of the so-called Beauty Defense and shines a spotlight on how gender bias has actually benefited femmes fatales and affected legal systems across the world"-- Provided by publisher.
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SERIES
True crime history
PUBLISHED
Kent, Ohio : The Kent State University Press, [2020]
Year Published: 2020
Description: 184 p.
Language: English
Format: Book
ISBN/STANDARD NUMBER
9781606353943
1606353942
SUBJECTS
Trials (Murder)
Femmes fatales -- Legal status, laws, etc.
Beauty, Personal -- Social aspects.