HOW TO KILL A WITCH

A compelling and detailed investigation into the historic persecution of women as witches from the 1500s to the present day.

**** THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ****

WINNER 2025 Goodreads Choice Awards

Blackwell's Scottish Book of the Year 'Fascinating and illuminating, this book tempers the justifiable rage with sharp and funny pinpricks to the pompous.' VAL MCDERMID, author of Past Lying

'As well as highly entertaining read, How To Kill A Witch is a tour de force of research, understanding and compassion.' PROFESSOR SUE BLACK, author of All That Remains. 'Serious and angry, but so completely accessible, How To Kill A Witch is a work of real historical investigation and a fierce warning for our times.' MALCOLM GASKILL, author of The Ruin Of All Witches

'At a time when women's rights are once again being threatened across the globe, this book could not be a more timely read if it tried.' SHIRLEY MANSON, Garbage

'Two of Scotland's most vivid storytellers.' THE TIMES

'Fascinating, angering' THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

As a woman, if you lived in Scotland in the 1500s, there was a very good chance that you, or someone you knew, would be tried as a witch. Witch hunts ripped through the country for over 150 years, with at least 4,000 accused, and with many women's fates sealed by a grizzly execution of strangulation, followed by burning.

Inspired to correct this historic injustice, campaigners and writers Claire Mitchell, KC, and Zoe Venditozzi, have delved deeply into just why the trials exploded in Scotland to such a degree. In order to understand why it happened, they have broken down the entire horrifying process, step-by-step, from identification of individuals, to their accusation, 'pricking', torture, confessions, execution and beyond.

With characteristically sharp wit and a sense of outrage, they attempt to inhabit the minds of the persecutors, often men, revealing the inner workings of exactly why the Patriarchy went to such extraordinary lengths to silence women, and how this legally sanctioned victimisation proliferated in Scotland and around the world.

With testimony from a small army of experts, pen portraits of the women accused, trial transcripts, witness accounts and the documents that set the legal grounds for the hunts, How to Kill A Witch builds to form a rich patchwork of tragic stories, helping us comprehend the underlying reasons for this terrible injustice, and raises the serious question - could it ever happen again?

About the Author

Leading human rights lawyer CLAIRE MITCHELL, KC, and writer, ZOE VENDITOZZI formed the WITCHES OF SCOTLAND campaign with the aim of shining a light on the historic injustice of the Witch Trials. As a result, on International Women's Day, 2022, the First Minister of Scotland, at issued a formal state apology - the first time in 300 years there had been any formal recognition of those who were most wrongly accused.

Through their tireless campaigning, regular public appearances, and highly entertaining podcast, also called THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND, this pair of 'quarrelsome dames' are currently working to build a lasting memorial to the murdered women, and campaign to draw attention to the continued persecution of women as witches around the world today.

In 2022, Claire and Zoe were made Doctors of Laws by the University of Dundee in 2022 in recognition of their work. Claire lives in Edinburgh and Zoe lives in Fife.