This is an in-depth examination and profile of the female killer. In Tender Murderers, Trina Robbins examines what kind of women commit that rarest of all crimes for women, murder, and why they do it. What kind of woman takes that step over the edge? Here is a rogue’s gallery of twenty fascinating but damned women. From the 1880s to the 1990s, some of their stories are ridiculous, some pathetic, some dashing, romantic, and tragic, but all these women were notorious.