AustLit

'The Ballroom Murder is a true crime story that gripped Perth nearly 100 years ago, and demonstrates the power of the press and privilege in an extraordinary judicial outcome.

'In August 1925, Audrey Jacob shot dead her former fiance, Cyril Gidley, in full view of hundreds of guests at a charity ball in Perth's Government House. When she was arrested, she still held the gun in her hand. It was a open and shut case of wilful murder - that is until Jacob assigned prosecutor Arthur Haynes to her defence.

'His ability to play the press and the jury for sympathy would lead to a sensational result. Not only did Jacob escape the gallows, she was found not guilty of Gidley's murder. Straw, the author of a number of books about notable Australian female criminals, tells a story that is rich with first-hand newspaper accounts from the day.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The Petticoat Parade, a true crime biography and social history of Josie de Bray's life is the latest book from award-winning author, Leigh Straw.

'Josie de Bray, aka Madam Monnier, aka Marie Louise Monnier, was a brothel madam who owned most of Roe Street, Perth from WWI up to the 1940s. A returned soldier tried to shoot her dead in her brothel in 1917 and her 'bungalow' was at the centre of underworld violence in the 1920s. She returned to France before WWII to visit family and was bombed repeatedly out of homes there and captured by the Germans. She was a prisoner of war and one story has her in a concentration camp. She survived, returned to Perth in 1947 and took up business again in Roe Street, having made a fortune from the rent collected from her brothels while she was a prisoner of war, up until her death in 1953.' (Publication summary)

'The newspapers called her 'Australia's most beautiful bad woman' and she was deadly to know...

'This is the story of 'Pretty' Dulcie Markham, a key figure of the underworld of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, who, according to one crime reporter, 'saw more violence and death than any other woman in Australia's history'. Nicknamed the 'Black Widow' and 'Angel of Death' by the crooks, reporters and police who knew her best, Dulcie's lovers were stabbed and gunned down in the most violent years of Australian crime, the 1920s to the 1950s. Not always by her ...'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'An engaging account of an extraordinary, trailblazing woman - Australia's first female detective - LILLIAN ARMFIELD is also the vivid and gripping story of the origins of Sydney's organised crime underbelly.

''Special Constable' Lillian Armfield was policing Sydney's mean streets during some of the most dramatic years of crime in the city. By the late 1920s, eastern Sydney was the heartland of organised crime and the notorious turf battles known as the Razor Wars, where bloodied bodies were strewn across streets after late-night clashes between rival gangs. At first disapproved of by her male colleagues, and often working solo and undercover, Lillian investigated it all - from runaway girls, opium dens and back-street sly grog shops to drug trafficking, rape and murder. She dealt with the infamous crime figures of the day - Tilly Devine, Kate Leigh, 'Botany May' Smith and their associates - who eventually accorded Lillian a grudging respect.

'Lillian Armfield's life and achievements were extraordinary. She paved the way for the women of today's police force and her amazing story is also a compelling chapter in Australian true crime history.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The legend of Kate Leigh, Sydney’s famed brothel madam, sly grog seller and drug dealer, has loomed large in TV’s Underbelly and every other account of Sydney’s criminal history from the 1920s to the 1960s. But she has never had a biography of her own.'

'Despite having more than 100 criminal convictions to her name, Kate Leigh is also remembered as a local hero, giving money to needy families and supporting her local community through the hard times of Depression and war. Here, novelist and historian Leigh Straw teases out the full story of how this wayward Reformatory girl from Dubbo made a fortune in eastern Sydney and defied the gender stereotyping of the time to become a leading underworld figure.' (Source: Newsouth Books website)

'DS Claire Patterson is back. It's a year since the Limestone case and rival organised crime leaders seek to turn the city into a battleground for their ruthless ambitions. When a body washes up in the river and a man is found dead near the Round House, the Fremantle team know the underworld feud just got a whole lot deadlier. Claire's former partner, Michael Halliday, is refusing to come back to work. Facing retribution for the Limestone case, Halliday is keeping a low profile managing his pub. DS Luke Groves is brought in from the Organised Crime Squad in Perth to fill Halliday's position and he's looking to make his mark at Fremantle Station. As war looks set to boil over in Fremantle's underside, Patterson and Groves know they need to end the feud before it claims another victim. Next time it could be one of their own.' (Publication summary)

'Combining historical study with cultural criminology, this paper analyses the criminal-celebrity of Sydney underworld figure Kate Leigh. It seeks to demonstrate how the three main factors of public resonance—crime type, context and image—created the celebrated criminality of Leigh. Without public resonance, Leigh would have simply remained another criminal within society. An important element of Leigh's celebrated criminality was her ability to manage a public image that was accepted within the impoverished, working-class communities of eastern Sydney. Leigh became a criminal icon through an entrepreneurial style based on the anti-authoritarian and egalitarian values of working-class life in eastern Sydney. Criminal-celebrity theory provides a framework for understanding the factors enabling the celebration of criminals in society. It also informs historians about the ways in which criminals can manipulate their public image in an effort to legitimise their activities and gain acceptance in the community.'

Source: Abstract.

''It's all over now, Maggie. I will release you.' Afraid, alone, and forsaken. A killer is stalking the historic West End streets of Fremantle preying upon the women of the port city. When a third lifeless body is found discarded in a dank alleyway with her throat ripped open, Detective Sergeant Claire Patterson is convinced she is dealing with a serial killer. For DS Patterson, this is her first time leading a major investigation, and she's intent on proving she has what it takes, even if it means working with the antagonising DS Michael Halliday. As the murders grip the city with fear, Claire Patterson must learn to trust Halliday if she is to catch a killer before he strikes again.' (Publication summary)