Poisoned Blood, Philip E. Ginsburg
Poisoned Blood, Philip E. Ginsburg
1 Rating(s)
List: $29.99 | Sale: $21.00
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Poisoned Blood
A True Story of Murder, Passion, and an Astonishing Hoax

Author: Philip E. Ginsburg

Narrator: David Colacci

Unabridged: 19 hr 51 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 09/15/2020


Synopsis

Pretty, smart, and pampered, Audrey Marie Hilley grew up in a small Alabama town believing she was entitled to the best of everything. But marriage to her high school sweetheart, a cushy secretarial job, and motherhood were not enough to satisfy Marie, and she soon began to act out in troubling ways. Only when her husband, Frank, became sick with a mysterious illness, did it seem that she was ready to put someone else's needs ahead of her own. The truth was far more disturbing.

Four years after Frank died, Marie's daughter, Carol, began to experience debilitating stomach pains. The young woman was near death when the horrifying reality finally emerged: Marie had poisoned her husband with arsenic and was attempting to do the same to her daughter. It was the first in a series of shocking twists that exposed Marie Hilley as a cold-blooded chameleon capable of the most sinister of crimes. From Alabama to Florida to New Hampshire, her trail of death and deceit included multiple identities, a second marriage, a false kidnapping, a fake death, several dramatic escapes, and a final act of desperation that brought the whole sordid saga to an astonishing end.

About Philip E. Ginsburg

Philip E. Ginsburg enjoyed several careers, sacrificing the advantages of continuity and seniority for the pleasures of new challenges and a variety of experience and learning. The common thread was writing, and each profession fed his curiosity about individual lives and how they fit together in a mosaic of politics and culture.

Ginsburg started writing before he was a teenager as a reporter for a short-lived summer camp newspaper. After college and a term in the Peace Corps, he worked as a newspaper reporter, a college professor teaching comparative and Chinese politics, and executive director of the New Hampshire Humanities Council. On a sabbatical from the Council, he turned what was intended to be a magazine article harking back to his journalism days into a book, Poisoned Blood, which became a New York Times bestseller. His subsequent career as a freelance writer produced histories, brochures and other materials-mostly for nonprofit organizations-and a second true crime work, The Shadow of Death. Since retiring as a writer, Ginsburg has worked as a volunteer advisor/mediator at the New Hampshire Consumer Protection Bureau and a court guardian for children in abuse and neglect cases. He also served in the New Hampshire House of Representatives.


Reviews

Goodreads review by ♥ Marlene♥ on April 04, 2014

Wow. Another fantastic old true crime book. It is terrible that I have to search for old true crime goodies because there is nothing good to read that is newly published. Well I do ask friends to give me recommendations for newer books but I guess they are in the same boat. A lot of newer books are o......more

Goodreads review by Chrissie on December 21, 2024

Wow, this woman was a real piece of work! She poisoned, murdered, deceived - and nearly got away with it! Then there was more... At nearly twenty hours, it is a long listen, and could have been shorter - and the narrator reads slowly!......more

Goodreads review by Hannah on August 01, 2024

A marathon (634 pages ‼️) but a great one ! Don’t want to spoil so just know that if Gypsy Rose is interesting to you, you’d like this book. Excellently researched with many interviews personally collected by the author.......more

Goodreads review by Rita on January 25, 2016

This is a riveting true story of a woman who went about her business of poisoning loved ones that she no longer wanted around. An astonishing complex case that keeps us on the edge of our seats. The tale of a woman with a genius for deception and the saga of this cold cruel person is told expertly b......more

Goodreads review by Bookishknits on April 20, 2023

Interesting story, but too long-winded. I listened to the audio book, and it was nearly 20 hours. The narrator changed his voice for any women talking (particularly for Marie Hilley) and not in a good way. I knew about this story beforehand, and even if I am really interested in true crime, this book......more