Review: Queens Of The Underworld, by Caitlin Davies

Blurb

Robin Hood, Dick Turpin, Ronnie Biggs, the Krays … All have become folk heroes, glamorised and romanticised, even when they killed. But where are all the female crooks? Where are the street robbers, gang leaders, diamond thieves, bank robbers and gold smugglers?

Queens of the Underworld reveals the incredible story of professional female criminals from the 17th century to today. From Moll Cutpurse who ruled the Jacobean underworld, to Victorian jewel thief Emily Lawrence and 1960s burglar Zoe Progl, these were charismatic women at the top of their game.

But female criminals have long been dismissed as either not ‘real women’ or not ‘real criminals’, and in the process their stories have been lost. Caitlin Davies unravels the myths, confronts the lies, and tracks down modern-day descendants in order to tell the truth about their lives.

‘A riveting dive into the criminal underworld and the women who queened it there’ – Helena Kennedy QC

‘A rollicking account of all kinds of crime committed by women, who have not only been forgotten or ignored, but who put their male counterparts to shame’ – Julie Bindel, The Spectator

My Review

Thanks to the author and publisher for my copy of this book and to Anne Cater for organising the blog tour.

This book is really interesting, bringing to life forgotten women criminals from the 16th century onwards. Most of them were thieves and fences. Entertaining and riveting, this book goes beyond the murderesses we usually hear about in women’s true crime history. The women in this book are mostly Londoners, with a few coming from outside London to live lives of crime in London. I found the Forty Thieves of the nineteenth century quite fun – they knew they were ‘bad girls’ and had no intention of changing! Unfortunately, they also violently assaulted men walking down the street.

I found the interviews with the family members of twentieth century criminals fascinating. They give us an insight into the lives and motivations of these women that you can’t get from reading the court records and newspaper reports.

One thing that stands out about all the women: every single one has been downplayed and sexed up by the people who wrote about them. The records of the lives of criminal women were historically written by men, who added all the sex and violence they wanted. While this can’t be refuted in the case of Moll Cutpurse (Mary Frith), the children, siblings and friends of twentieth century criminal women are able to counter these tales. One, Zoe Progl, had her life story ghost-written by a journalist, who insisted on adding sex and drug parties. She refused to let her daughter read it, because half of it wasn’t true. Accusing women of promiscuity is an old tactic for diminishing them. There are some interesting stats in the book regarding the number of girls sent to Borstals for relatively minor crimes compared to boys for the same crimes.

They have all been side-lined as ‘molls’, wives or girlfriends of criminal men, who merely acted from fear, or as decoys, who couldn’t possibly have been the masterminds behind the gangs they ran or crimes they planned and committed, despite the evidence of witnesses and accomplices. Even a 21st century criminal woman was accused by the City of London Police of being a cipher for a cartel because they didn’t believe a woman alone could steal 3.3 million quid. The woman in question was a PA at a big bank. The people she stole from didn’t notice the money because they had sooooooo damn much!

I think this book definitely needs to be on the bookshelves of people interested in true crime, but it’s also an aspect of social history that needs exploring more.

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Author Bio

Caitlin Davies is the author of six novels and eight non-fiction books, many of which have a criminal theme. The Ghost of Lily Painter was based on the true story of two Edwardian baby farmers, while Bad Girls: The Rebels and Renegades of Holloway Prison was the first comprehensive history of Europe’s most infamous female jail. It was nominated for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing, 2019.

Caitlin is a trained teacher, who started her writing career as a human rights reporter in Botswana. She currently works as a Royal Literary Fund writing fellow at NHS Kent & Medway.

Queens of the Underworld tells of her journey into the lives of female crooks from the 17th century to today. Her upcoming book, Private Inquiries: the secret history of female sleuths, to be published in October 2023, reveals the true tales of female private eyes from the 1850s to the present. Caitlin trained as a private investigator as part of her research, but wasn’t nearly as observant as she hoped she’d be.

Welcome

@CaitlinDavies2