Thread nets Olsen’s ‘twisted’ true-crime tale of woman who poisoned husband with cyanide

Thread has signed Gregg Olsen’s American Mother, an “astonishing” account of the story of Stella Nickell, the first person to be found guilty of violating the Federal Anti-Tampering Act in the USA after lacing her husband’s painkillers with cyanide. 

Claire Bord, publisher at the Bookouture non-fiction imprint, acquired world all language rights from Susan Raihofer of the David Black Literary Agency, for publication in e-book, audio and paperback. Grand Central Publishing will also release simultaneously in trade paperback.

Bord said: “Gregg Olsen takes us behind the scenes of this extraordinary case from 1986 and uncovers the tangled web of dark secrets at the heart of a very troubled family, a complex mother and daughter relationship and what drove Stella Nickell to poison her own husband. American Mother is an unusual and gripping story that will have true-crime fans of ’The Staircase’ and ’Making of a Murderer’ totally hooked.”

Olsen, author of books such as The Hive (Thomas & Mercer) and Stillwater Island (Thread) commented: “No other case is as twisted and, in its unique way, as personal as the Nickell case. Anybody who bought a poisoned-pill bottle could have been her victim. It didn’t matter to her. Stella wanted money and schemed to get it in the ugliest, most shocking way possible. She was a domestic terrorist before we even knew the phrase.”