Review: The Countess

The Countess by Rebecca Johns was interesting, if not exactly what I was expecting. The novel tells the fictionalized story of the legendary Elizabeth (or Erszebet), allegedly history's most prolific serial killer.

I am not sure exactly what I was expecting out of a fictionalized account of a historic serial killer, but I do think I was expecting more...detail about her crimes. The book was surprisingly light on detail, and I really wish it had an author's note at the end both addressing where she took liberties and giving some more explanation as to what we now know about her crimes. I intend to read a biography at some point to fill in those details. On the flip side, the lack of detail means that it isn't super gory for a book about a serial killer - which could be a positive or a negative, depending on what you're looking for. If you want lots of gore, this book will probably disappoint you.

I found her approach to the book interesting; the book is basically written as a sort of autobiography, intended for the countess's son, explaining and justifying her crimes. I thought this was a really interesting way to tackle the story and the character, so I really appreciated that part. Of course, that also means that there is, I would imagine, some white-washing of her crimes. For instance, the book leaves the number of victims pretty vague, and only mentions a handful in detail - which may in part be an effort to avoid accusations of inaccuracy given that (from what I understand) we don't actually know how many people she killed. This is another thing I think could have been discussed in an author's note at the end to satisfy the reader's curiosity.

Copy of a portrait of Bathory,
probably from the 16th century

Also a positive (at least for me), was that the book the reader a look at the daily life she would have led in that period as a Hungarian noble women. I thought the book might focus heavily on her crimes and neglect the "historical" bit of the historical fiction. That was not the case, which I appreciated.

The book starts with her early years with her family, then her betrothal to Ferenc Nadasdy and the move into his mother's household, followed by their marriage and her later love affairs. There was a lot more detail regarding her overall life than I might have expected; I think I was expecting it to be more focused on scandal.

That means I can also see it appealing to someone who isn't interested in the criminal aspect of her history; that actually takes up a surprisingly small portion of the book, so I can recommend it to someone interested in that time period, even if they don't care about her criminal history.

Overall, this book was a pleasant surprise and I would read another by this author, and I can recommend to anyone interested in Bathory or this period in Hungarian history.