{"product_id":"2940149061884","title":"Poison Widows:A True Story of Witchcraft, Arsenic, and Murder","description":"George Cooper's first book, Lost Love, won acclaim for its riveting portrayal of tender passions and sensational murder in old Manhattan. It was history rendered in a page-turning narrative style, a style that Cooper now applies to the 1930s and the infamous poison murder ring that infected the superstitious Italian immigrant community of South Philadelphia.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePoison Widows describes a world where the evil eye could bring ruin upon a family, where malevolent spirits stalked the living, and where the only relief lay in the fattuchiere, the witch doctors of the Old Country. It tells the story of a self-proclaimed sorcerer, Louie \"the Rabbi\" Bolber, who claimed he could cure cancer with a magic butter knife given to him by a Chinese witch; Paul Petrillo, who discovered that the Rabbi's love potion, while useless as an agent of romance, was quite a handy and seemingly untraceable poison; and the dozens of \"poison widows\"--women who, some as willing accomplices and others just foolish dupes, sent their husbands to an excruciatingly painful death. When the scheme was eventually uncovered, a protracted battle was waged upon the widows in the courts, urged on by a frenzied press and an ambitious district attorney.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDrawing on trial transcripts, press reports, and interviews with participants, Cooper paints a vibrant, darkly comic portrait of this sordid chapter in the history of crime. The parallels to recent trials, including the impact of media coverage and the awesome powers of a skilled lawyer to redefine \"justice\" on his own terms, gives Poison Widows the timeliness of a story sprung right from the headlines, mingled with the morbid timelessness of mankind's darkest nature.","brand":"George Cooper","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47108964122864,"sku":"2940149061884","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940149061884_p0.jpg?v=1763712229","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940149061884","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}