The Devil's Rooming House

The Devil's Rooming House: The True Story of America's Deadliest Female Serial Killer by M. William Phelps     303 pages

The Devil's Rooming House tells the story of Amy Archer-Gilligan, America's most prolific female serial killer. Through his study of first-hand documents and accounts of people close to Amy and who were part of the investigation that brought her to trial, M. William Phelps tells the story of Amy's life as the matron of one of the first homes for the elderly, where she most likely had a hand in killing at least 50 inmates.

Boy, was I excited to read this book. It's been on my to-read shelf for a while, but what first sparked my interest was the connection to "Arsenic and Old Lace," one of my favorite movie comedies. The stage play of the same name was loosely based on the life of Amy Archer-Gilligan, America's deadliest female serial killer.

And with that kind of title, you'd expect to be in for the read of your life - except, this book was quite difficult to get into. For one thing, it was slow to get going. Phelps takes a LOT of time setting up the scene, what the time was like in the early 1900s, a bit of Hartford, CT history. But it went on, and on. For a while I though it was just going to be about the excessive heat wave that killed hundreds in 1911. The first five or six chapters were devoted to it, with occasional mentions of the characters that would soon be coming into play.

I thought once the set up was finished, the story might then become engrossing. It didn't really. The majority of people might consider non-fiction to be boring. I have read many non-fiction titles that I found to be just as exciting and interesting as fictions, but this book would support the "boring" feeling about non-fiction. For such an interesting story, it was told in a very muddled way. The story took a long time to take shape, the facts weren't relayed in a very interesting or conversational tone, and much of the author's personal opinion of the subject (Amy, herself) really showed at the end.

All in all, I felt the book was a poorly handled written attempt to tell the story of one of America's most interesting female criminal figures. I'd much prefer to watch the very fictional, over the top "version" of the story through "Arsenic and Old Lace."

I would not recommend this book.