Everybody knew Velma Barfield as the perfect wife and a loving grandmother. But there was something about her that nobody knew... Velma Barfield had a secret life, and a sick urge to kill. "Fast-paced...breathes new life into the true crime genre."-- Raleigh News & Observer "Taut and engrossing."-- Booklist "Get ready for the Velma Barfield story...complete with all the prescription drug overuse, the arsenic, the drunkenness, the spouse abuse--and the redemption. It's the equal of any suspense novel going."-- Times-News (Burlington, NC) "Bledsoe has written a detailed account of Barfield's troubled life and motives...holds the reader's interest with a true story that reads like a novel." -- Library Journal "Undertakes to answer the questions about the justice system and the motives that drive women to kill."-- Washington Post Book World "An important commentary of the standing of a nation's soul, with journalistic integrity and the resonance of a fine novel."-- Will Campbell "The Master of true crime."-- Patricia Cornwell.