The Queen

Winner of the 2019 NBCC prize in Biography

This is the gripping true tale of a villain who changed American history.

In the 1970s, Linda Taylor became a fur-wearing, Cadillac-driving symbol of the undeserving poor - the original ‘welfare queen’. In the press she was the ultimate template for this insidious stereotype; Ronald Reagan himself cited her criminal behaviour in his presidential campaign, turning public opinion firmly against state benefits and those who used them.

But Taylor was demonized for the least of her crimes. She was a con artist, a thief, a kidnapper, maybe even a murderer - and certainly one of the most gifted and deranged criminals of modern times.

The Queen is the never-before-told story of a beguilingly complex American character, forgotten in the rush to create a vicious American myth.