<p>Subscribe for free: www.robertmurphy.substack.com</p><p>Imagine you are a woman in 1659 Papal Rome. You can’t choose your husband, your job, your home. If your family had no money, you’d most likely end up in a convent or on the streets.</p><p>And what if your life was ruled by a brutal husband, father or brother?</p><p>Divorce? No chance.</p><p>Anna Mazzola discovered the true case of Gironima Spana who supplied women with a potion known as Aqua Tofana to sort the problem: to kill the men.</p><p>But the corpses didn’t decay as they should, and the authorities were alerted.</p><p>‘The Book of Secrets’ reimagines this story from three perspectives: the poisoner, a survivor of domestic abuse and the prosecutor entrusted with catching the killers.</p><p>The Book of Secrets won the 2025 Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger Award - one of the biggest accolades in crime writing.</p><p>In this interview, Anna Mazzola describes the inspiration and research for the novel, how her work as a human rights lawyer informs her work, and her new venture writing crime/political thrillers set in the modern day under her pen-name Anna Sharp.</p><p>You can find out more about Anna Mazzola here: </p><p>https://annamazzola.com/</p><p></p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://robertmurphy.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_2">robertmurphy.substack.com/subscribe</a>