The women who serve as the subjects for this book, all share compelling stories. Most of the women in Keene's book are from North Central New York living along the Erie Canal in small, isolated rural communities.
Some of the women chronicled in the book include, Lizzie Halliday, convicted of murdering nine of her own family members. Catherine Claus, who boasted of killing 15 infants in her care, Caroline D. Sorgenfrie, charged with the murder of her four husbands', and Ella Holdridge, the fourteen year old thrill killer who enjoyed looking at her victims because, "They looked so nice dead."