Books › Starvation Heights
Starvation Heights
First published 1997 · 432 pages
A dread-soaked historical true crime narrative that exposes the terrifying vulnerability of seeking a cure from the wrong hands.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like watching a slow-motion nightmare unfold in the damp, isolated forests of the Pacific Northwest. It is a dread-soaked and claustrophobic experience, immersing the reader in the eerie atmosphere of the early twentieth century where gaslights and steamships set the stage for unimaginable medical exploitation. The narrative moves at a steady, haunting pace, meticulously peeling back the layers of a charismatic practitioner's greed and the terrifying vulnerability of those seeking wellness. The prose is atmospheric yet grounded in the sharp, objective clarity of true crime reporting, making the historical horrors feel viscerally immediate. It will deeply satisfy readers who devour meticulously researched historical true crime and chilling accounts of medical malpractice, offering a dark, unforgettable journey into the extremes of human deception.
- Mood
- dread-soaked
- claustrophobic
- eerie
- isolated
- Tone
- chilling
- investigative
- haunting
- objective
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- medical exploitation · vulnerability and trust · greed and deception · historical true crime
- The writing
- Atmospheric and meticulously researched, evoking the gaslit era while maintaining the sharp clarity of true crime reporting.
- The arc
- Moves from naive hope for a cure into a suffocating nightmare of isolation, culminating in a desperate fight for survival and justice.
- Who it's for
- Readers who are fascinated by historical true crime, medical history, and chilling tales of charismatic con artists.
Content notes
- starvation
- medical malpractice
- murder
- financial exploitation
- isolation
About the book
In 1911 two wealthy British heiresses, Claire and Dora Williamson, came to a sanitorium in the forests of the Pacific Northwest to undergo the revolutionary "fasting treatment" of Dr. Linda Burfield Hazzard. It was supposed to be a holiday for the two sisters. But within a month of arriving at what the locals called Starvation Heights, the women were emaciated shadows of their former selves, waiting for death. They were not the first victims of Linda Hazzard, a quack doctor of extraordinary evil and greed who would stop at nothing short of murder to achieve her ambitions. As their jewelry disappeared and forged bank drafts began transferring their wealth to Hazzard's accounts, Dora Williamson sent a last desperate plea to a friend in Australia, begging her to save them from the brutal treatments and lonely isolation of Starvation Heights.In this true story--a haunting saga of medical murder set in an era of steamships and gaslights--Gregg Olsen reveals one of the most unusual and disturbing criminal cases in American history.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Description from Open Library.
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