Kirjahaku

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, Brisbane and Perth, 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 ...PRAISE'For readers new to the history of this appalling yet enthralling era of organised crime, the book will simply astonish' Catie Gilchrist, author of Murder, Misadventure and Miserable Ends, Tales from a Colonial Coroner's Court

The fascinating and unknown story of Australia's first female detective - and a gripping and colourful account of Sydney crime in the 1920s to 1940s

The Kennedys considered their home in Hyannis Port, Cape Cod, ‘The big white house’, to be a haven from their busy lives. Yet in the summer of 1944, against the backdrop of WWII, the events that unfolded for them there changed the family forever. Beginning in the May of that year, The Kennedys at Cape Cod 1944 paints an intimate picture of those few months. As the younger Kennedy children and their parents settled into their summer home, it follows the family drama that unfolded. From the scandal of the eldest daughter, Kick, marrying William ‘Billy’ Cavendish, and the eldest son, Joe Jr’s, dangerous and secret bombing missions over Europe, to second son Jack’s quiet recovery from injury sustained in the line of duty, younger daughter Rosemary’s conspicuous absence and the youngest son, Ted’s, loneliness, it explores the innermost hopes, fears and anxieties of each Kennedy. Following these events as they played out over the summer of 1944, it culminates with the event that would change them forever: the tragic death of Joe Jr. Offering a close account of the months leading up to this momentous moment, The Kennedys at Cape Cod 1944 is an unparalleled and never-before-revealed account of how the family experienced and responded to this tragedy, which was later described as a ‘turn in the road’ for their family. The summer of 1944 changed all their lives, and in propelling the second brother, Jack Kennedy, into the political limelight, changed the course of American political history.

Matriarch of the criminal underworld … or the Robin Hood of inner Sydney? 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 over 100 criminal convictions to her name, Kate Leigh is remembered as a local hero, giving money to needy families and supporting her Surry Hills 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 became a leading underworld figure.

In Collie in 1929, a murder-suicide took place. The killer was identified as Andrew Straw. Dressed in war uniform and a slouch hat, a hauntingly familiar face stared out at me from the front page of Truth. Andrew Straw bore a striking resemblance to my husband. I had unearthed an unexpected family story. Of the 330,000 Australian men who enlisted and served in World War I, close to 60,000 never returned home. As much as it is important to commemorate the war dead, it is also imperative that we remember the survivors as they moved into peacetime. Of the 32,000 West Australian men who enlisted, 23,700 returned from the war. These men tried to create a semblance of a civilian life following the traumas of war. War receded from immediate view as these men readjusted to civilian life, but its impacts endured. Many returned with disabilities, mental health problems and a lowered sense of self-worth that led some to take their own lives. This book charts the emergence of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a diagnosable condition in an Australian context. In this deeply personal account, historian and writer Leigh Straw seeks a better understanding of what soldiers experienced once the fighting stopped. After the War uses the personal struggles of soldiers and their families to increase public understanding of the legacies of World War I in Western Australia and across the nation. The scars of war-mental and physical-can be lifelong for soldiers who serve their country. This is a story of surviving life after war. Subject: Military History, History, PTSD, Psychology, WWI, Australian Studies]

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.

In August 1925, Audrey Jacob shot dead her former fianc , 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.

The Kennedys considered their home in Hyannis Port, Cape Cod, ‘the big white house’, to be a haven from their busy lives. Yet in the summer of 1944, against the backdrop of WWII, the events that unfolded for them there changed the family forever. Beginning in the May of that year, The Kennedys at Cape Cod, 1944 paints an intimate picture of those few months. As the younger Kennedy children and their parents settled into their summer home, it follows the family drama that unfolded. From the scandal of the eldest daughter, Kick, marrying William ‘Billy’ Cavendish, and the eldest son, Joe Jr’s, dangerous and secret bombing missions over Europe, to second son Jack’s quiet recovery from injury sustained in the line of duty, younger daughter Rosemary’s conspicuous absence and the youngest son, Ted’s, loneliness, it explores the innermost hopes, fears and anxieties of each Kennedy. Following these events as they played out over the summer of 1944, it culminates with the event that would change them forever: the tragic death of Joe Jr. Offering a close account of the months leading up to this momentous moment, The Kennedys at Cape Cod, 1944 is an unparalleled and never-before-revealed account of how the family experienced and responded to this tragedy, which was later described as a ‘turn in the road’ for their family. The summer of 1944 changed all their lives, and in propelling the second brother, Jack Kennedy, into the political limelight, changed the course of American political history.