Plenty of salacious tidbits make The Red Widow fun to read, but Ms. Horowitz...delivers more than a lurid tale of murder. She examines the moral attitude of a society in which women like Steinheil had little independence and were forced to rely on men for their survival ... Ms. Horowitz’s book is well researched, but her portrait of Steinheil doesn’t go very deep, and her descriptions of Belle Époque Paris and its salons are surprisingly flat. For a better picture, look to Steinheil’s own lively, unreliable memoir.
Very detailed ... Horowitz has pieced together a fascinating story of a woman who 'lied all her life' and died in 1954 at the age of 86 in a Hove nursing home, taking her secrets with her.
Horowitz paints a dazzling yet nuanced portrait of femme fatale Marguerite Steinheil ... A tale of barely hidden affairs, unsolved murder, and scandal is skillfully interwoven with the larger historical context of the Dreyfus affair, women’s history, and France creeping towards WWI. Fans of true crime and women’s history will find this a page-turning read.
Colorful ... Horowitz skillfully contextualizes this lurid tale with details about the Dreyfus affair and other contemporaneous events, and draws a nuanced portrait of Steinheil. This hits the sweet spot between true crime and women’s history.
