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Not a Very Good Murderer

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Not a Very Good Murderer

By: Ronan Farrow
Narrated by: Ronan Farrow
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About this listen

Kidnapping plots, arson, jewel heists, attempted murder–just another day in Paradise...Valley, Arizona.

In this wild, genre-bending audio documentary, New York Times best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Ronan Farrow dives deep into the strange and storied life of high-society socialite and former Miss Arizona Celia (Cece) Doane.

As a well-to-do ex-beauty queen in the 1970s, Cece had no trouble attracting husbands. She did appear to have some trouble getting rid of them, though. Under seemingly perpetual investigation for attempted murder plots against two of her spouses, she has been a “person of interest” to Arizona law enforcement for decades but never arrested. Did she actually conspire to have her husbands killed? And if so, how has she managed to elude detectives for so many years?

Through countless hours of interviews and painstaking investigative legwork, Farrow examines Cece’s checkered past, exposing a web of half-truths and omissions that shed new light on this shocking and confounding case. But what happens when he realizes that his most important source may also be his most unreliable?

Part true crime thriller, part captivating character study, Not a Very Good Murderer is a fascinating exploration of what it takes to uncover the truth and what it means to keep it buried.

©2025 Ronan Farrow (P)2025 Audible Originals, LLC.
Editors Select Murder True Crime

Editorial Review

The journalist and the not-very-good murderer
I knew Ronan Farrow’s first Audible Original was going to be juicy, but even I wasn’t prepared for CeCe Doane. A former Miss Arizona and Rolls Royce-driving fixture of wealthy Paradise Valley, AZ, Doane first caught Farrow’s attention when she tweeted about a story he was working on, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist soon found himself with a fascinating new subject. Had this eccentric woman really tried to kill her husband with Viagra, as a witness claimed—and if so, why was the couple still together more than two decades later? In this riveting character study-meets-true crime investigation, Farrow gradually reveals a nesting doll of family secrets, high-profile politics, scandalous gossip and one unreliable woman at the centre of it all. I loved hearing Farrow’s deep reporting and CeCe’s larger-than-life persona take shape in this voice-driven documentary, which adds needed nuance to the current obsession with female villains, con artists and shades-of-gray criminals. —Kat J., Audible Editor

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Why spend so much time with a woman who has gotten away with everything in her life by being a horrid drunk who refuses recovery? I just don’t get it.

Oh geeze

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Wasn’t sure this needed to be made - it felt almost too personal to get into a woman’s life this way - but she seemed willing, and Ronan is a fantastic reporter, a mastermind in storytelling and journalism.

Ronan is Great

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possibly could have been a little shorter but a fascinating story. Ronan is an excellent narrator

How calm Ronan was

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Great story by a great journalist. He kept the listener enthralled from start to finish.

Ronan is fantastic

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This was.... interesting, it was a podcast style interview for the most part. I don't usually like that style but this one was no too bad.
No real conclusions at the end though.

🤔

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