The Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers who Inspired Chicago by Douglas PerryMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
The Chicago being inspired here is the 1926 play written by Maurine Dallas Watkins> and later adapted into films and a famous musical. Maurine Watkins, as a wanna-be playwright and a "girl reporter" for the Chicago Tribune, the city's "hanging paper." Newspaperwomen were a rare breed and an important part of this story as Watkins covered by "Stylish Belva" Gaertner and "Beautiful Beulah" Annan—both of whom had shot down their paramours in a time when Chicago was obsessed with lethal women and justice for such femme fatales. Watkins was also involved in covering the Leopold and Loeb thrill killings. This book is in three acts: Dawkins getting into the trade, the courtroom denouement of the Belva and Beulah killings (a pair of names better matched than Thelma and Louise!), and Dawkins' career as a playwright and writer.
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