Poison Flowers: A Bordeaux Housewife's Murderous Secret

By Viviane Janouin-Benanti

Gabrielle Benzac was raised in the French city of Bordeaux during the tumultuous early decades of the 20th century. Despite political unrest and a father who was never the same after he returned from the battlefields of the Great War, Gabrielle had a seemingly normal childhood and grew into a seemingly normal adult. Early in her life, she was a loving daughter and a good student. As a young adult, she had many friends and enjoyed the vibrant social scene of the 1920s. She met and married Laurent Mairin , a kind and hardworking man who cared deeply about democratic ideals, and with him, she had two beautiful children. When did things go wrong? When did this perfect housewife decide to start cheating on her husband? How did she learn about digitalis, a lethal poison made from a pretty garden flower? Why did she use it to poison the people closest to her? Could she really end up facing the guillotine?
Viviane Janouin-Benanti answers all these questions as she brilliantly recounts the life of Gabrielle Benzac in this spellbinding true crime novel that transports the reader to another place and time. The everyday events of Gabrielle's life in Bordeaux are set against the backdrop of the devastation of World War I, the Roaring Twenties, the influx of refugees fleeing oppressive regimes and migrants from the French colonies looking for work, the rise of fascism and anti-Semitism in France, and the onset of another World War. In all this turmoil, did something go wrong in Gabrielle's life, or had there always been something wrong? Dive into this fascinating story of love, secrets, and scandal in Bordeaux.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 2378851235
• ISBN13: 9782378851231
• Release Date: May 2025
• Publisher: 3e Editions
• Length: 308 Pages
• Weight: 0.91 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"