Queen of All Mayhem - The Blood-Soaked Life and Mysterious Death of Belle Starr, the Most Dangerous Woman in the West

A riveting, deeply researched, blood-on-the-spurs biography of Belle Starr, the most legendary female outlaw of the American West.

On February 3, 1889, just two days shy of her forty-first birthday, Myra Maybelle Shirley-better known at that point by her outlaw sobriquet "Belle Starr"-was blown from her horse saddle and killed by a pair of shotgun blasts, delivered by an unseen assailant, only a few miles away from her home in the Indian Territory of present-day Oklahoma. Thus ended the life of one of the most colorful, authentic, and dangerous women in the history of the American West.

While today's household names like Annie Oakley and Calamity Jane had dubious criminal bona fides, Belle's were not in any doubt. She led a gang of horse thieves (a very serious crime in an era when horses were often the basis of one's livelihood); was romantically involved with two of the West's most legendary outlaws, Cole Younger and Jim Reed (her first husband); and participa ted in stickups and robberies across present-day Texas and Oklahoma. When Reed was murdered, Belle crossed into Indian Territory, where she assimilated into the Cherokee tribe, a matrilineal society, and soon married Sam Starr, a direct descendant of Nanye'hi, the greatest female warrior in Cherokee history.

Dane Huckelbridge, acclaimed author of No Beast So Fierce, probes a life rich in contradictions and intrigue. Why did a woman who had considerable advantages in life-a good family, a decent education, solid marriage prospects, a clear path to financial security-choose to pursue a life of crime? The life of Belle Starr is one of almost endless trauma: the horrors of the Civil War, which destroyed her hometown and killed her beloved brother, Bud; the untimely deaths of her first two husbands, both of them murdered; a stint in Detroit's notorious women's prison. Her career coincided with those of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and yet Belle Starr was a very d ifferent sort of feminist icon.

Queen of All Mayhem is a triumph of biography, revealing one of the most-mythologized figures of Western lore as she truly was.

Rezension:

"Dane Huckelbridge's Queen of All Mayhem deftly delivers on its promise to thrill readers with the story of the most dangerous woman in the West in the late 1800s. Belle Starr was the wildly famous female outlaw you've likely never heard of. But this is more than just a rollicking recounting of a villainess who rode sidesaddle with a gun strapped to her hip. It's an exploration of why criminals turn out to be criminals." - Kate Winkler Dawson, author of American Sherlock and The Sinners All Bow

"Dane Huckelbridge's engaging biography of Belle Starr-a female outlaw who gained notoriety for her criminal activities in the second half of the nineteenth century-reveals surprising new insights about a spirited woman who defied gender norms." - Amanda Bellows, author of The Explorers: A New History of America in Ten Expeditions

"An exuberant and highly entertaining biography of one of the greatest of all US folk heroes. Dane Huckelbridge's deft deep-dive into the hard- living, gun-slinging life of Belle Starr sorts facts from fiction, and is a most welcome addition to the male-dominated history of the American West." - Katie Hickman, author of Brave Hearted and She-Merchants

"Dane Huckelbridge's thrilling and complex account of the remarkable female crime boss Belle Starr left me astonished-and completely upended much of what I thought I knew of the history of the Wild West." - Dan Chaon, author of Sleepwalk

"A satisfying exploration of the life of the sassy bandit queen." - Booklist

"Huckelbridge has conjured up one heck of a Wild West tale about a 'whiskey-drinking, horse-thieving, gunslinging double widow' that is chock-full of Western lore and nasty desperadoes. . . . The elusive, colorful story of a rare outlaw, told with brio." - Kirkus Reviews