Why am I passionate about this?
I first became fascinated by the portrayal of female criminals when I wrote a novel, The Ghost of Lily Painter, based on the first women to be executed at Holloway Prison in London in 1903. Holloway was the most infamous female jail in Europe and shortly before it closed down in 2016, I was given access to the prison archives. That led to Bad Girls, nominated for the Orwell Prize, and it also led to the discovery of a forgotten criminal aristocracy - the women who were once so notorious they were Public Enemy No.1.
Caitlin's book list on female crooks
Why did Caitlin love this book?
The recent rediscovery of the Forty Elephants, a British all-female crime syndicate, is mainly due to Brian McDonald’s book. Brian has direct family links to the gang, and the book is packed full of criminal characters and incidents. It also traces the roots of the Forty Elephants all the way back to Victorian times.
1 author picked Alice Diamond and the Forty Elephants as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
The Forty Elephants were unique in the annals of British crime. Emerging from the slums like fallen angels, these glamorous, lawless young women plundered fashion stores and jewel shops, picked their lovers from among London’s toughest gangsters and terrorised their rivals. Soon they were renowned, and feared, as the country’s first all-female crime syndicate.
They first rose to notoriety under Mary Carr, a beautiful artists’ model known as ‘Queen Thief’. But it was her successor, Alice Diamond, who led the Forties to their greatest infamy. Born the oldest of eight children in a workhouse hospital, she became the cleverest shoplifter…