The Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers who Inspired Chicago (original 2010; edition 2010)

by Douglas Perry

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The true story of the murderesses who became media sensations and inspired the musical Chicago. There was nothing surprising about men turning up dead in Jazz Age Chicago. Life was cheaper than a quart of illicit gin in the gangland capital of the world. But two murders that spring were special, or so believed Maurine Watkins, a "girl reporter" for the Chicago Tribune, the city's "hanging paper." Newspaperwomen were supposed to write about clubs, cooking and clothes, but the intrepid Miss Watkins zeroed in on murderers instead. She made "Stylish Belva" Gaertner and "Beautiful Beulah" Annan--both of whom had brazenly shot down their lovers--the talk of the town. Soon more than a dozen women preened and strutted on "Murderesses' Row" as they awaited trial, desperate for the same attention that was being lavished on Maurine Watkins's favorites.--From publisher description.… (more)

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Member:	kraaivrouw
Title:	The Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers who Inspired Chicago
Authors:	Douglas Perry
Info:	Viking Adult (2010), Hardcover, 320 pages
Collections:	Your library, Read but unowned
Rating:
Tags:	Douglas Perry, social history, Chicago

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The Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers who Inspired Chicago by Douglas Perry (2010)

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20
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (browner56)
browner56: Two fascinating looks at murder and mayhem in the Windy City at the turn of the last century.
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Murder City: The Bloody History of Chicago in the Twenties by Michael Lesy (kraaivrouw)
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The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum (merovin)
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Chicago: With the Chicago Tribune Articles that Inspired It by Maurine Watkins (cbl_tn)

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Interesting story that's rather poorly written. I didn't really care for the over-the-top purple prose used by the author to write about the fate of these women. But the story of how Chicago tried and treated these murderers in the local newspapers as well in the courts is a good one. And learning that the author of the musical "Chicago" was a woman who held her own at the Tribune and among the Hearst newspapers was cool. (

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Carmentalie | Jun 4, 2022 |

Somehow both bland and trashy at the same time. Douglas Perry's The Girls of Murder City focuses on the brief period in 1920s Chicago when a number of women who had almost certainly murdered their husbands or boyfriends were not only acquitted of their crimes but became minor local celebrities—a phenomenon which ultimately inspired the play and later the musical Chicago.

But while the marketing for this book promised a gripping social history, this is really a fairly shallow recounting of the events (Perry mentions in passing that African American women in similar circumstances were treated very differently, but foregoes the opportunity to trace one of their stories and so look with a clearer eye at how whiteness played a role in the construction of the "Beautiful Killers") with some truly awful prose ("Maybe he would take her now, right here on the couch. Yank her underthings off and split her open, with the breeze from the window rolling over them"? Ugh). Forgettable. (

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siriaeve | Oct 19, 2021 |

A good recounting of the murderesses in Chicago who were arrested and tried, but eventually aquited of their crimes, and then how those trials inspired the Broadway play, and eventually a Tony award-winning musical, Chicago. I found the stories of the women accused of the crimes to be interesting, and Maureen Watkins reporting, with it's biting barbs of satire, to be quite fascinating. Even more so to learn about how Watkins' reporting inspired her to write her play, Chcicago. I enjoyed the book, and learned a bit of history that I was unaware of. Tying that history into a very popular musical, and showing where the inspiration came from was well-done. (

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GeoffHabiger | Jul 6, 2020 |

Interesting and well written story about how Chicago (the play/movie/musical) came to be and the real women it was based on. (

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RunsOnEspresso | Mar 25, 2020 |

First off. In the extended title of this book, it says "who inspired Chicago". It literally took me half the book to realize "Chicago" meant Chicago, not Chicago. The play, not the city. Before that, I had thoughts about the way the story had been drawn out, and why there was so much time with the reporters and not just with the murderesses (I wanted more murderesses, dammit) and it's a whole different perspective, to be honest. In that light, The Girls of Murder City is fabulously done.

I'm more an ancient history person, and years of reading traditional fantasy has me deeply interested in Western Europe... but something about Chicago pulls me in. From a purely romanticized perspective, Chicago was its own world of blood and deceit and danger. Between The Girls of Murder City and The Devil in the White City, color me officially intrigued in Chicago. The city pulled me into this book, and it ended up being a hybrid of crime history and theatre history and I gobbled it up. I'm sure there is a lot to Chicago that's beautiful and fabulous, but I'm so drawn by its dark history.

Douglas Perry does a fantastic job of laying out the narrative. There were a few times where I thought I heard the same quotes more than once, but as a general rule, the story felt like a story. The best historical narratives, in my opinion, are the ones that bring history to life. The Girls of Murder City makes you curious about Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner. They're brought to life through various interviews and articles, but they are kept separate from Maurine Dallas Watkins - the reporter who covered their stories in the '20s, and author of Chicago. You'll learn about these women's trials than you will from their Wikipedia articles, and with a little innocence creative eloquence, they fly off the page.

Not just Beulah and Belva, though. Several women of murderesses row - or at least of that period in Chicago history - jump off the page. If anything, Perry makes them seem larger than life, far more stylish and beautiful than they were in actuality. If you're even vaguely interested in the sordid history of the Second City, or in crime history in general, The Girls of Murder City is a fascinating, interesting story and told in such a way that it would hold anyone's attention.

In short? I loved the way the history was told and I enjoyed dipping into this period of history for the first time in several years. If the subject interests you at all, I highly recommend it. (

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Morteana | Dec 16, 2019 |

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As entertaining as Chicago (on stage or screen), and far more informative, The Girls of Murder City recaptures a moment in which the Victorian feminine ideal was (and wasn't) giving way to the "churning change" of the flapper lifestyle — and ebulliently elucidates the emergence of the criminal as celebrity. It's this summer's "not guilty" pleasure.

added by CSMcMahon | editNPR, Glenn Altschuler (Aug 5, 2010)

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Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
Douglas Perry	—	primary author	all editions	calculated
Berkrot, Peter	Narrator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed

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Canonical title

Original title

Alternative titles

Original publication date

People/Characters

Important places

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Important events

Murder of Bobby Franks

Jazz Age

Related movies

Chicago (2002 | IMDb)

Epigraph

Dedication

For Deborah

First words

The most beautiful women in the city were murderers. (Prologue)

Out in the hallway, young men stood in a haphazard line, trying to look eager and nonchalant at the same time. (Chapter 1)

Quotations

Last words

(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)

Disambiguation notice

Publisher's editors

Blurbers

Original language

Canonical DDC/MDS

364.152309227731

Canonical LCC

HV6517.P475

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▾Book descriptions

The true story of the murderesses who became media sensations and inspired the musical Chicago. There was nothing surprising about men turning up dead in Jazz Age Chicago. Life was cheaper than a quart of illicit gin in the gangland capital of the world. But two murders that spring were special, or so believed Maurine Watkins, a "girl reporter" for the Chicago Tribune, the city's "hanging paper." Newspaperwomen were supposed to write about clubs, cooking and clothes, but the intrepid Miss Watkins zeroed in on murderers instead. She made "Stylish Belva" Gaertner and "Beautiful Beulah" Annan--both of whom had brazenly shot down their lovers--the talk of the town. Soon more than a dozen women preened and strutted on "Murderesses' Row" as they awaited trial, desperate for the same attention that was being lavished on Maurine Watkins's favorites.--From publisher description.

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Book description

Chicago, 1924. There was nothing surprising about men turning up dead in the Second City. Life was cheaper than a quart of bathtub gin in the gangland capital of the world. But a pair of murders that spring had something special.

For intrepid "girl reporter" Maurine Watkins, a minister's daughter from tiny Crawfordsville, Indiana, big-city life offered unimagined excitement. Newspaperwomen were supposed to write bout clubs, cooking, and clothes, but within weeks of starting at the Chicago Tribune, Watkins found herself embroiled in two scandalous, sex-fueled murder cases. The first involved Belva Gaertner, the witty sophisticated millionaire divorcée who feared returning to the poverty of her childhood. Then there was Beulah Annan, a Kentucky farm girl turned jazz baby whose wistful beauty obscured an ice-cold narcissism. Both had gunned down their lovers under mysterious circumstances.

In Chicago, Watkins learned, the all-male juries didn't convict women--especially beautiful women. The young reporter was determined to change all that. She mocked "Stylish Belva" and "Beautiful Beulah" on the front page and made them the talk of the town. But the public reaction was not what she expected. Love-struck men sent flowers to the jail; newly emancipated women sent impassioned letters to the newspapers. Soon more than a dozen "murderesses" preened and strutted in the Cook County Jail as they awaited trial, desperate for the same attention that was being lavished on Watkin's "favorites." None of these women--nor the police, the reporters, or the public--could imagine the bizarre way it would all end.

Douglas Perry vividly captures the sensationalized circus atmosphere that gave rise to the concept of the celebrity criminal--and gave Chicago its most famous story. Fueled by rich period detail and a cast of characters who seemed destined for the stage, The Girls of Murder City is crackling social history that simultaneously presents the freewheeling spirit of the Jazz Age and its sober repercussions. [from the jacket]

CONTENTS:

PART I

A MAD ECSTASY

A grand object lesson

The variable feminine mechanism
One-gun duel
Hang me? That's a joke
No sweetheart in the world is worth killing
The kind of gal who never could be true
A modern Salome ; Her mind works vagrantly
Jail school
PART II
THE GIRLS OF MURDER CITY
The love-foiled girl
It's terrible, but it's better
What fooled everybody
A modest little housewife
Anne, you have killed me
Beautiful, but not dumb!
The tides of hell
Hatproof, sexproof, and damp
A grand and gorgeous show
Entirely too vile
The most monotonous city on earth.

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