Book Club: Don’t mess with this serial killer – the original black widow.

In 1900 Chicago, a husband dies under the most suspicious of circumstances. Anton Sorenson had a $2,000 life-insurance policy set to expire and took out a new policy for $3,000. For just one day – July 30, 1900 – both policies were in effect. And on that very day, he dies of a cerebral hemorrhage. According to his wife, Belle Gunness, he had come home from work with a terrible headache. She said she gave him quinine powder, a common remedy, and went to prepare dinner. When she returned to check on him, she said, he was dead.

Belle remarries, this time to a much-younger man. Eight months later, Peter Gunness is also dead, the back of his skull smashed in.

In 1906, a series of personal ads begin to appear in a local Midwest newspaper. Belle is looking for investors for her farm. None of the men who answer her ad are ever seen again.

In real life, Bella was thought to have killed at least fourteen people, but it could have been as many as 40, in Illinois and Indiana between 1884 and 1908. Most of those murdered were men  who she had invited to visit her rural Indiana property.

Triflers Need Not Apply is the dazzlingly original and chilling reimagining of the life of Belle Gunness, the original black widow, Camilla Bruce opens the door to the mind of a female serial killer, where murderous scheming and the darkest of thoughts reside. Penguin. For more great reads, visit exclusivebooks.co.za