The queen
(Book)

Originally published in 2019 by Wildfire.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

On the South Side of Chicago in 1974, a woman called Linda Taylor reported a fake burglary, concocting a lie about stolen furs and jewellery. The police soon discovered she was a welfare cheat who drove a Cadillac to collect illegally claimed government cheques. And that was just the beginning: Taylor, it turned out, was also a kidnapper, and possibly a murderer. 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. Part social history, part true-crime investigation, this book, the product of six years of reporting and research, is a fascinating account of American racism, and an exposé of the "welfare queen" myth, one that fuelled political debates that reverberate to this day.