If you found yourself in Chicago in 1977 and wandered into a small drinking establishment at 731 N. Wells Street, you might have thought...

In mid-19th century Manhattan, the Five Points neighbourhood had gained international infamy as a crowded, disease-ridden, crime-infested slum. Here and in other desperate quarters of a rapidly growing New York, gangs ruled the streets, and not all of their most fearsome members were men. Amid the bustling markets and back-alley saloons, a new breed of criminal emerged: women who could pick pockets as deftly as any man, con the gullible with a disarming smile, or brawl in the