In Wicked Women of Northeast Ohio, author Jane Ann Turzillo recounts the misdeeds of ten dark-hearted women who refused to play by the rules.

They unleashed their most base impulses using axes, guns, poison and more. You'll meet Perry's Velma West, a mere slip of a girl who was unfortunately too near a hammer during an argument. New Philadelphia's Ellen Athey, no lady herself, had a similar problem with an axe. Ardell Quinn, who operated the longest-running brothel in Cleveland, would simply argue that she was a good businesswoman. Grim? Often. Entertaining? Deliciously so.

Jane Ann Turzillo writes about Ohio history and true crime. Wicked Women of Northeast Ohio combines both. She was one of the original owners of the West Side Leader, a large northeast Ohio weekly newspaper, where she covered police news and wrote a historical crime column. She has won several Ohio Press Women awards for fiction and nonfiction and is the author of two historical books on Bath Township and Hudson, Ohio.