The elusive, colorful story of a rare outlaw, told with brio.
The most notorious of America’s female outlaws.
Journalist and author 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. Myra Maybelle Shirley, aka Belle Starr, was born in 1848 near Carthage, Missouri, around horses and guns, was educated, and could play the piano. Huckelbridge conjectures—something he does frequently—that Myra “likely” became a Confederate spy. Her brother Bud, a Confederate soldier, was killed, traumatizing the 16-year-old and transforming her into an “outlaw.” The family then moved to the true frontier: Texas. “It was during these two powder-burnt decades,” writes Huckelbridge, “that the legend of Belle Starr would take root, nourished by that almost mystic Western triad of what would prove to be the woman’s three greatest passions: horses, outlaws, and the Indian Territories.” In 1866, at 18, she married the criminal Jim Reed, and they moved to Missouri, where they had a daughter and a son. After Reed was killed, she joined a violent Cherokee “galloping nightmare” clan full of killers and in 1880 married another ruthless criminal, Sam Starr. Her new name “twanged like a bullet off spit-shine brass: Belle Starr.” The Cherokee gave Sam some land, which they used as a robber’s roost for trafficked horses, protection rackets, and whiskey smuggling. They were arrested for horse stealing and locked up. She dodged other arrests. Sam was killed in a gunfight. Another marriage provided protection for her Indian land. At 40, riding her horse sidesaddle early one evening in 1889, Belle was shotgunned twice, dying in her daughter’s arms. Huckelbridge explores many “what-ifs,” but her killing remains a mystery.
The elusive, colorful story of a rare outlaw, told with brio.Pub Date: May 13, 2025
ISBN: 9780063307018
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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