Peaky Blinders—but with women! In the thrilling final installment of Beezy Marsh’s riveting crime trilogy about a real-life London gang that began with Queen of Thieves, we go back to crime queen Alice Diamond’s bold beginnings in 1920s Soho.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Queen of Diamonds by Beezy Marsh, which is out now.
London, 1922. Orphan girl Alice dreams of more than toiling long hours in Pink’s jam factory. Inspired by stories about the legendary Queen of Thieves, Mary Carr, who terrorized the streets of Victorian London, Alice decides to set up her own gang: the Forty Thieves. She has an accomplice too: sly seamstress Kate Felix from Whitechapel persuades Alice they’d make the perfect team. Before long, the pair are making headlines in the glitzy world of 1920s Soho, known for their daring heists and for the row of heavy diamond rings that Alice uses like brass knuckles in her frequent brawls.
What Alice soon discovers is that a life of crime makes her powerful enemies, including some who are closer to home than they’d like. Alice must sacrifice more than she ever imagined—but the toughest and most beautiful diamonds are formed under pressure.
From squalid slums and the grim confines of Holloway Prison to the glittering nightclubs of London in the roaring twenties, Queen of Diamonds is a fast-paced, gritty story of love, loss, and loyalty to the gang. Women’s fiction with brass knuckles on!
Although she was quite small, it was easy to follow her without being seen because she was so wrapped up in herself, pleased as Punch with her hoisting. She was wearing a lovely royal blue drop-waisted dress, very fashionable, with a wide lace collar. She’d clearly had a good day of it because she only spent another five minutes pretending to peruse some dresses before she wandered down the stairs and into the street.
The breeze lifted the hem of her skirt, revealing her shapely legs as she headed along Oxford Street, peering in a few windows. I watched her like a hawk, almost mesmerized by the way she moved, the curl of her hair against the nape of her slender neck, the gentle sway of her hips. If I could reach out and touch her skin, it would feel like silk, I was sure of it. I started to wonder if she’d cry or gasp when I grabbed her. I was so much bigger than her, stronger. Kate Felix would be no match for me. I’d plunge my fingers into her carpetbag and take what she’d stolen, seizing it for myself.
I skulked along about ten paces or so behind her. Passing a newsstand, I grabbed a copy of the evening paper, chucking the boy a penny, so that I had something to hide behind if she turned around. But she didn’t. She stuck her perfect little nose in the air and hopped onto a tram, heading over toward Whitechapel. I waited a moment, letting a few passengers get on, before I did the same.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I am a Londoner through and through, but I’ve never liked the East End, mainly because there are gangs that I was warned about when I was just a girl. It’s funny how those stories stick with you, well, that and the ones about Jack the Ripper, because God knows, the Seven Dials weren’t exactly paradise. But you know your home turf and mine was the West End and these days, the Elephant and Castle, and that was about the sum of it. I’d never had any real desire to head east. Until now.
The tram rattled along, rocking from side to side, and I could almost feel myself nodding off in the warmth of the late afternoon, daydreaming about how I’d make Kate Felix regret the day she’d crossed me. I had to keep pinching myself to stay awake. We were nearing Petticoat Lane when she stood up, brushed the dust off her dress and hopped off, in that sprightly way she had about her. I was the last to alight, keeping a safe distance.
The stench of the market hit me first. Hawkers on the corner were flogging off the last of their wares to the poorest housewives, who had to wait until the end of the day in the hope of getting a bargain for supper, even if it was just the scrag-end of lamb or mince that was mostly gristle. Rotten bits of fruit and old cabbage leaves lay strewn in the gutters where barrow boys had plied their trade.
It was a way of life that hadn’t changed much since before the Great War, and in the years before that, right back to the days when the East End costergirls tightened their corsets and proudly plonked ostrich feathers in their hats, kicking up their skirts down the boozer in the hope of attracting a decent husband.
Before they knew it, they’d be dancing to some fella’s tune, scraping a living, working their fingers to the bone, heading to the market, drowning their sorrows in the pub. East End girls were always full of sob stories; I’d heard enough to last me a lifetime. Mugs, the lot of them. But Kate Felix was different. She had something about her, and the more I watched her wandering slowly over the cobbles, the more I was intrigued by her. It was almost as if she didn’t quite fit in, like a diamond that had landed in a pile of manure.
Screeches of laughter and snatches of song escaped from the open windows at the Frying Pan pub in the middle of Brick Lane. It was a bit early for a knees-up, but it was the East End, after all, so I couldn’t blame them. Suddenly, the doors swung open, and a fella staggered out, coming to a halt right in front of Kate. He started to windmill his arms around, his beady eyes bloodshot behind round glasses, practically frothing with rage, as he yelled at her.
“Where the hell have you been? I’ve been looking for you up every sodding alleyway ’cos I know you’ve been hiding from me, you lazy, good-for-nothing.” Tufts of hair stuck out above his ears on either side of his balding head. He looked like a screeching owl about to devour a tiny mouse.
With that, before she even had time to open her pretty little mouth to reply, he clobbered her one, right in the jaw. She reeled backward, legs splaying, dropping her bag, landing on her arse at his feet. He was slight, not that tall for a bloke, but he aimed a powerful kick at her, as if he was booting a vicious dog. “How dare you defy me! After everything I’ve done for you! How fucking dare you!”
“I didn’t, I didn’t,” she sobbed, pulling her knees in close and covering her head with her hands as his foot connected with her stomach. “I did all the work you told me to. I left it back in the shop under the counter.”
She started rocking back and forth. “Please don’t hit me no more!”
He stopped and thought about it for a split second, musing to himself. “Well, I never looked there. You must’ve hidden it from me on purpose, you ungrateful wretch. You’re sneakier than your mother ever was, and she was trouble. It was a mercy when she died. You’re just a good-for-nothing and don’t you forget it!”
A few people had started peering out of the pub door, watching the commotion like it was a night at the music hall. Nobody offered to help her. A barrow boy walked past, wheeling his cart, whistling to himself.
“Come back inside, Johnny,” said a big woman, who had a bright red face and hips wider than the back end of a trolleybus. “She ain’t worth the bother, the little minx.” She fixed Kate with a gimlet eye, her mouth curling with pleasure at her distress. “You need to be more grateful for everything he’s done for you—saving you from the orphanage for starters.”
Johnny staggered toward this overblown harpy, blowing her a kiss. “Thank you, my love. Mine’s a pint, if anyone’s asking.”
And with that, the door to the Frying Pan pub swung shut.
Kate Felix sat on the cobbles, a mass of snot and tears, the contents of her bag strewn in the dirt. She cried softly to herself, hugging her arms around her skinny little waist for comfort. The sun was going down and the sky above the rooftops was streaked with pink as I approached. I kneeled down beside her and she glanced up at me, with a look of disbelief that swiftly turned to anger that I’d seen her in this state.
“Get away from me!” she spat. “I don’t need your help and I don’t want your pity neither.” She started frantically pulling her bag closer, grabbing for things that had spilled out onto the ground, wincing with pain.
I reached out and touched her on the shoulder, gently, because I didn’t want to frighten her, not after she’d been beaten up by that balding twerp. I wanted to put my arms around her and hold her close, to try to make it better. But I knew in this world, for girls like us, that was never a guarantee and I’ve never been one for breaking my word. So, all she got was a friendly pat.
From Queen of Diamonds by Beezy Marsh. Copyright © 2024 by Beezy Marsh Ltd. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
