While the Angel of Death/Angel of Mercy is a depiction of a criminal offender I’m aware of, I have never heard of Jane Toppan before. Wanting to go back into reading true crime, I knew Ryan Green was the author to go to. I’ve listened to some of his audiobooks before, quickly becoming not only a fan of his writing style but also an admirer of Steve White’s narration of it.

Since this is a review of a book based on a true and gruesome story of a serial killer, reader discretion is advised. I’m not going to go into any heavy details here, however, it might still be upsetting to some.

In case you’re unfamiliar with this terminology in the world of criminology, Angel of Death (or Angel of Mercy) denotes a type of criminal working in a medical or caregiving profession who intentionally harms the people they’re taking care of – people they’ve taken under their wings.

This novel by Ryan Green, titled ‘Angel of Death’, depicts a harrowing story of one such criminal, Jane Toppan, who transformed from a position of healer to one of the most notorious female serial killers in America.

The daughter of Irish immigrants, Jane was born in 1854 in Boston, Massachusetts, under the name Honora. Having lost her mother in the early years to Tuberculosis, she was under the care of her father, a known alcoholic and an overall eccentric. In 1860, after sawing his own eyes shut, the father sent his two youngest daughters, including Honora, to an orphanage, never to see them again. After two years, she was placed in the house of the Toppan family. While she was never formally adopted by them, she took on the surname as well as the new name, Jane, as she cared for their actual daughter, Elizabeth, of a similar age.

In 1885, she began studying as a nurse at Cambridge Hospital. She became so well-known for her positive and considerate nature that she earned the nickname of ‘Jolly Jane’. This is also where she first started to experiment on her elderly patients by injecting them with a mixture of morphine and atropine. By changing up the prescribed dosage, Jane caused them to drift in and out of consciousness – in and out of life. Between her work there and at Massachusetts General Hospital, she took the lives of several victims. While she wasn’t caught at this point, Jane was fired from both by 1890 for reckless administration of opiates, beginning a new career as a private nurse.

The elderly in her care started dying one by one. From Jane’s landlord and his wife, to Jane’s foster sister, Elizabeth. Even then, no one raised the alarms. Jane always managed to move into the next household before being caught. Her victims were mostly elderly and frail patients already, prior to Jane getting involved, their deaths didn’t raise any eyebrows or suspicions towards her. That is, until she murdered an entire family in her care, in a matter of weeks.

While hired to take care of the elderly Alden Davis following the death of his wife (whom she murdered), Jane ended up continuing her killing spree by murdering him, his sister and his two daughters. A toxicology report carried out on one of the daughters at the request of her remaining family members provided evidence of poisoning. Following that, in 1901, Jane Toppan was finally arrested on suspicion of carrying out twelve murders in total. However, in a confession to her lawyer, she admitted to killing more than 31 people. The real number remains unknown, but the estimation puts it at 100 victims. Jane was found not guilty on account of insanity and committed to an insane hospital, where she spent the remainder of her time till she died in 1938, aged 81.

Hope I didn’t lose you there with this lengthy summary! There’s so much more to the story, I’m not going into details here, primarily not to spoil it for anyone.

‘Angel of Death’ by Ryan Green is a chilling and harrowing book recounting Jane Toppan’s story. The author dives a little bit deeper into the dark impulses that have driven Jane to commit the acts that she did.

True crime novels like these, based on available accounts and publications, often carry a certain bias. Discussions on her motives and accounts of what could have been going through her head at the time of the murders are just that, a deduced hypothesis, a theory put forth. We will never know how she truly felt about what she did or about her patients and victims. However, I still enjoyed this book. Ryan Green does a good job of presenting these points in the form of a plot that is not only cohesive but extremely intriguing. Steve White’s narration of it is also one I enjoy a lot; he has a great voice and intonation that make it well-suited for audiobook format. ‘Angel of Death’ is relatively short, too. A nice bite-sized book that I listened to in its entirety throughout the day.

These accounts are never nice to read or listen to, but I am intrigued about solving these mysteries and seeing the irrational motivations behind them. It feeds into the exploration of morality and human nature, which is as fascinating as it is scary. If you have any interest in true crime or psychology, or similar disciplines, there’s a wealth of information to be gathered in stories like these, and I’d highly recommend you check out Ryan Green’s collection for related reads.