The women serial killers of Papal Rome: The Book of Secrets with Anna Mazzola

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Imagine you are a woman in 1659 Papal Rome. You can’t choose your husband, your job, your home. If your family had no money, you’d most likely end up in a convent or on the streets.

And what if your life was ruled by a brutal husband, father or brother?

Divorce? No chance.

Anna Mazzola discovered the true case of Gironima Spana who supplied women with a potion known as Aqua Tofana to sort the problem: to kill the men.

But the corpses didn’t decay as they should, and the authorities were alerted.

‘The Book of Secrets’ reimagines this story from three perspectives: the poisoner, a survivor of domestic abuse and the prosecutor entrusted with catching the killers.

The Book of Secrets won the 2025 Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger Award - one of the biggest accolades in crime writing.

In this interview, Anna Mazzola describes the inspiration and research for the novel, how her work as a human rights lawyer informs her work, and her new venture writing crime/political thrillers set in the modern day under her pen-name Anna Sharp.

You can find out more about Anna Mazzola here:

https://annamazzola.com/

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