A new book with the title Queen of all Mayhem: The Blood-soaked Life and Mysterious Death of Belle Starr is just begging to be picked up. And what a fascinating chronicle Dane Huckelbridge has written about the legendary “gunslinging, horse-thieving, bandit-carousing outlaw” of the Wild West.

The period of the nineteenth century, when Myra Maybelle Shirley, aka Belle Starr, was raising hell wherever she went, was tumultuous in American history—the fierce battles with the native tribes whose lands the white immigrant settlers grabbed, the terrible toll the Civil War took on the people, and the madness of the Gold Rush. The times were marked with horrific violence, unimaginable cruelty and criminal activity so brazen that no law-keeping forces could control it.

It was also the time of the legendary outlaws Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Butch Cassidy, Sundance Kid, Jim Miller, and Holliday, now immortalised in books and movies. Among them is a single female name—Belle Starr.

When women tended to homes and children, Bella Starr flamboyantly rode side-saddle, dressed in black velvet, a plumed hat, and pistols at her waist. The weapons were not for show—she was an expert shooter (though murder is not listed as one of her crimes). The daughter of a prosperous father, she was also, unlike the women of her time, well educated, well read and........

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