Razor: A True Story Of Slashers, Gangsters, Prostitutes & Sly Grog

TRUE CRIME AUSTRALIA

The inner-city ghettos of East Sydney were once the most dangerous streets in Australia. In the 1920s, 30s and 40s razor gangs slashed and mutilated each other, and anyone else who got in their way, in an effort to wrest control of the lucrative illegal sly grog, prostitution, SP betting and cocaine rackets.

Gang leaders like Tilly Devine, Kate Leigh and Phil “The Jew” Jeffs made fortunes whilst their henchmen such as Guido Calletti and Frank “The little Gunman” Green killed, extorted and bashed with impunity. Facing them were the police – some corrupt, some honest, and a few as tough and as feared as the gangsters they fought.

This book is the true story of this netherworld of violence and vice, and of the extraordinary characters that populated it. Most of all, it is the story of the city that created it.

“In the 1920s and ’30s in inner Sydney, some of the most terrifying criminals in Australia’s history waged war with razor and gun. As gang warfare raged, the streets echoed with the sounds of violence and ran with blood. Razor is the fascinating true story of the people who lived and loved in this world of violence and vice. But most of all, it is the story of the place they lived. Razor brings a city’s dark past back to life, and ensures that you will never look at inner Sydney in quite the same way again”.

xxxii, 336 p., [16] p. of plates : ill., ports. ; 23 cm. #060823

• Devine, Tilly
• Leigh, Kate
• Criminals — New South Wales — Sydney
• Sydney (N.S.W.) — History — 1901-1945