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. ( )

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. ( )

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. ( )

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

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. ( )