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Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men by Harold Schechter

One of my book groups read Devil in the White City by Erik Larson in 2025. The non-fiction book is about a serial killer during the era of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. 

During the discussion on that book, a member mentioned another serial killer from the same era, quite close to Chicago. 

“Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men is a non-fiction true crime book by Harold Schechter, first published on April 1, 2018, by Little A. It explores the chilling case of Belle Gunness, a Norwegian-American serial killer who operated in La Porte, Indiana, in the early 20th century.”

So we read that book too, as a group, January 2026. 

First, this book is hard to find. The library only had three copies. I got mine on Audible. One person bought a paperback, another did e-book. The e-book had links to photos and videos which she really enjoyed.

I lead this discussion. The regular librarian had a schedule conflict. The substitute librarian had just read The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party by Daniel James Brown and it impacted her greatly. She could not take a serial killer book after the Donner Party story. So I lead. 

This is an Indiana True-Crime story. It was gruesome. Except for the librarian we all enjoyed it and it was a great discussion.

I maintain accounts on GoodReads and StoryGraph, thanks to youngest getting me organized. 

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Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men

Harold Schechter

Audiobook edition

 8h 55m • audio • 2018 

nonfiction biography historytrue crime dark mysteriousslow-paced

3.75

In each book post, I utilize https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/

This is a wonderful website that helps clarify the publication order of books and verifies book series. I use this website because there are no spoilers. But if I need a description, I can click over using the links, easily. There are also author bios.

https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/harold-schechter/