the queen: the forgotten life behind an american myth

The Queen: The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth

Critically acclaimed, "reads like a detective story," (Washington Post) "one of the most outlandish true crime capers of the season," (Daily Beast) and the basis for the podcast The Queen, Slate editor Josh Levin's "wild, only-in-America story" (Attica Locke, author of the Edgar Award winning Bluebird, Bluebird) of Linda Taylor, the original "welfare queen" On the South Side of Chicago in 1974, Linda Taylor reported a phony burglary, concocting a lie about stolen furs and jewelry.

The detective who checked it out soon discovered she was a welfare cheat who drove a Cadillac to collect ill-gotten government checks. And that was just the beginning: Taylor, it turned out, was also a kidnapper, and possibly a murderer. A desperately ill teacher, a combat-traumatized Marine, an elderly woman hungry for companionship- after Taylor came into their lives, all three ended up dead under suspicious circumstances. But nobody- not the journalists who touted her story, not the police, and not presidential candidate Ronald Reagan- seemed to care about anything but her welfare thievery.