Full Product Details
Author: Mary Kay McBrayer
Publisher: Mira Books
Imprint: Park Row Books
Edition: Original ed.
Dimensions:
Width: 15.60cm
, Height: 2.30cm
, Length: 23.50cm
Weight: 0.381kg
ISBN: 9780778310655
ISBN 10: 0778310655
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 03 June 2025
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming
Availability: Not yet available
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release.
Reviews
""A historic true crime tale with a twist. Madame Queen was one of the only female crime bosses in the early 1920s. She wasn't ruthless, but she was cunning. She wasn't cruel, but she was efficient. St. Clair navigated corrupt cops, murderous mafia dons, and greedy politicians to become an activist, whose story lives on in this fabulous book."" -Author Kate Winkler Dawson, The Sinners All Bow and American Sherlock ""Fair warning: once you step into these pages, you won't want to step back out. Stephanie St. Clair is a forgotten heroine with brains, grit, and courage in spades. Mary Kay McBrayer's thorough research and captivating writing bring both Madame Queen and 20th century Harlem to life. A must read for any historical true crime fan!"" -Annie Reed, author of The Impostor Heiress: Cassie Chadwick, the Greatest Grifter of the Gilded Age ""Mary Kay McBrayer plucks another fascinating character out of relative obscurity and brings her back into the light. The bold and brassy Stephanie St. Clair, aka Madame Queen, comes alive, though not without her faults, through the words of McBrayer, who not only captures St. Clair's bravado and magnetism, but also the atmosphere of each time period. At the end, the reader is left wondering: how did time ever even forget such a vibrant individual?"" -David Nelson, author of Boys Enter the House: The Victims of John Wayne Gacy and the Lives They Left Behind ""While history remembers the bad boys of Prohibition-such as beer baron Dutch Schultz-Stephanie St. Claire, Queen of the Harlem numbers racket, became a forgotten footnote. Mary Kay McBrayer uncovers the fascinating life of the gangster/activist. Despite her gender and race, Stephanie took on the greatest mob bosses of the era-and managed to survive."" -Marlene Wagman-Geller, author of Unabashed Women, The Fascinating Biographies of Bad Girls, Seductresses, Rebels, and One-of-a-kind Women
Author Information
Mary Kay McBrayer is the author of America's First Female Serial Killer: Jane Toppan and the Making of a Monster. You can find her short works at Oxford American, Narratively, Mental Floss, and FANGORIA, among other publications. She hosts the podcast about women in true crime, The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told.
