<DIV> <br><p> <br><div> </div> <br></p> <b>The true story of the murderesses who became media sensations and inspired the musical <i>Chicago</i> </b> <br> Chicago, 1924.<br> There was nothing surprising about men turning up dead in the Second City. Life was cheaper than a quart of illicit gin in the gangland capital of the world. But two murders that spring were special - worthy of celebration. So believed Maurine Watkins, a wanna-be playwright and a "girl reporter" for the <i>Chicago Tribune,</i> the city's "hanging paper." Newspaperwomen were supposed to write about clubs, cooking and clothes, but the intrepid Miss Watkins, a minister's daughter from a small town, zeroed in on murderers instead. Looking for subjects to turn into a play, she would make "Stylish Belva" Gaertner and "Beautiful Beulah" Annan - both of whom had brazenly shot down their lovers - the talk of the town. Love-struck men sent flowers to the jail and newly emancipated women sent impassioned letters to the newspapers. Soon more than a dozen women preened and strutted on "Murderesses' Row" as they awaited trial, desperate for the same attention that was being lavished on Maurine Watkins's favorites.<br> In the tradition of Erik Larson's <i>The Devil in the White City</i> and Karen Abbott's <i>Sin in the Second City</i>, Douglas Perry vividly captures Jazz Age Chicago and the sensationalized circus atmosphere that gave rise to the concept of the celebrity criminal. Fueled by rich period detail and enlivened by a cast of characters who seemed destined for the stage, <i>The Girls of Murder City</i> is crackling social history that simultaneously presents the freewheeling spirit of the age and its sober repercussions.<br></div> <br>.