True stories of Ma Barker, Belle Starr, Bonnie Parker, and other historical female desperadoes of the Midwest . . . Includes photos. Marauders like Jesse James and the Younger gang earned Missouri the title of “Outlaw State,” but the male desperadoes had nothing on their female counterparts . . . Belle “Queen of the Bandits” Starr and Cora Hubbard kept Missouri’s sensationalist newspapers and dime novelists in business with exploits ranging from horse thefts to bank heists. Missouri native Ma Barker and her murderous sons rose to infamy during the gangster era of the 1930s, while Bonnie Parker crisscrossed the state with Clyde Barrow. From savvy burlesque dancers to deadly gold diggers, historian Larry Wood chronicles the titillating stories of ten of the Show-Me State’s shadiest ladies.

This collection of short, action-filled stories of the Old West’s most egregiously badly behaved female outlaws, gamblers, soiled-doves, and other wicked women by offers a glimpse into Western Women’s experience that's less sunbonnets and more six-shooters. Pulling together stories of ladies caught in the acts of mayhem, distraction, murder, and highway robbery, it will include famous names like Belle Starr and Big Nose Kate, as well as lesser known characters.

Challenging America's confusing standard of beauty, a humorous look at life from the perspective of a large woman shares her own experiences as well as her thoughts on eating, sex, dating, exercise, and other topics.

From its founding in the early 1830s, Springfield was a rough frontier town where whiskey flowed freely, gunplay and fistfights abounded and gambling thrived. The Civil War not only brought the horror of warfare home to Springfield but also introduced worldly vices like prostitution that were scarcely known in previous years. Yet throughout its history, Springfield has managed to maintain a veneer of respectability not shared by certain other towns of southwest Missouri that were founded as wild, wide-open mining camps, like Joplin and Granby. Join Larry Wood as he digs beneath the surface of Queen City history to expose notorious characters and capers that would make even Joplinites blush.

"The Buckeye State produced its share of wicked women. Tenacious madam Clara Palmer contended with constant police raids during the 1880s and '90s. Only her death could shut the doors of her gilded bordello in Cleveland. Failed actress Mildred Gillars left for Europe right before World War II. Because she fell in love with the wrong man, she wound up peddling Nazi propaganda on the radio as "Axis Sally." Volatile Hester Foster was already doing time at the Ohio State Penitentiary when she bashed in the head of a fellow inmate with a shovel. The sinister Anna Marie Hahn dosed at least five elderly Cincinnati men with arsenic and croton oil and then watched them die in agony while pretending to nurse them back to health. Award-winning crime writer Jane Ann Turzillo recounts the stories of Ohio's most notorious vixens, viragoes and villainesses"--Back cover.

From the duel on Bloody Island to the "Missouri Miracle" kidnapping and recovery of Shawn Hornbeck, Missouri has seen its share of notorious crimes. It was home to the first western gunfight on the town square between Wild Bill Hickok and Dave Tutt. The three trials of the alleged murderer of Colonel Thomas Swope, the founder of Kansas City's Swope Park, enveloped the state. Residents also saw the killings within a few blocks of each other that inspired the songs "Stagger Lee" and "Frankie and Johnny." Vicki Berger Erwin and James W. Erwin explore crimes, criminals and victims from the violent history of the last two hundred years in the Show Me State.