BLOODIED bodies were strewn across Sydney streets in 1927 as the city was gripped by gang warfare.

Carrying guns was outlawed, so the gangs used razors to slash and disfigure. The results were horrific, as a graphic chapter in Fremantle author Leigh Straw’s biography The Worst Woman in Sydney: The Life and Crimes of Kate Leigh shows.

Leigh was one of the leading crime bosses and featured in the Underbelly: Razor mini series, but where she shared screen time with a host of shady characters, Straw’s book is wholly and solely about her flamboyant life.

“She was a fearsome crime figure who loomed larger in underworld life than her 155 centimetre frame,” the Notre Dame academic says.

Crime was big news and at the height of Leigh’s career in the late 20s and 30s hardly a week passed that she didn’t feature in the  papers.

• Gangland boss Kate Leigh.

Prostitution, drugs, sly grog, and peddling stolen goods earned her the moniker The Worst Woman in Sydney by police, but the Leigh reckoned it was just because she got the most press.

“Not the worst, you bastards, the most notorious,” she snarls in Straw’s book.

Leigh broke many rules in her criminal career: “But the most significant was being a crime boss in an underworld dominated by men” Straw writes.

The book mixes factual accounts and reports of the day, with a bit of poetic licence that puts words in the mouth of the long-dead mobster.

“Telling Kate Leigh’s story was about bringing her to life for readers as a three-dimensional person, not just a sensationalised underworld crook.

“I wanted to see [her] life through her eyes, to understand her various motivations for her life of crime and her need to gain acceptance in her community,” Straw says.

Leigh was a complex character and her evil deeds were contrasted by the help she doled out to those down on their luck during the depression: “[And] in the second world war…and she was know to help the local boys home”.

“She was a matriarchal identity and that still carries through in Sydney,” Straw says.

Leigh married Fremantle criminal Shiner Ryan in 1950, but neither was prepared to move states permanently.

“The marriage last six months, if that. But there was a lot of affection. It was a match made in underworld heaven,” Straw says.

To hear more about Leigh’s fascinating crime career from the author head down to Bar Orient, corner High and Henry Street, Tuesday August 2, 6.30pm. RSVP fremantle@newedition.com.au

by JENNY D’ANGER