The Girls Who Fought Crime: The Untold True Story of the Country’s First Female Investigator and Crime-Fighting Squads

Retired Army major general Eder (The Girls Who Stepped Out of Line) profiles in this colorful account the “tough, intrepid” Mae Foley (1886-1952), who became one of New York City’s first policewomen in 1923. Originally assigned to the so-called “masher squad,” which policed crimes committed by men against women (from pocket-picking to murder), in 1925 Foley was promoted to detective and attached to Manhattan’s 19th Precinct. In 1930 she transferred to the 108th Precinct in Queens, where she investigated the 3X Murders, a still unsolved series of shootings by a killer who signed eerie letters to the press as “3X.” (On one occasion, Foley acted as bait for the killer, but caught a garden-variety mugger instead.) At various points in her career, she raided bootleggers’ stills as part of the squad that enforced the Volstead Act during Prohibition; fought Nazis on Long Island; and kept safe the sex-worker witnesses testifying against gangster Charles “Lucky” Luciano. Eder also describes how Foley stood up for herself and her sister officers against the patriarchy of the police force, where women were held to higher standards than men. Eder’s vivid and raucous narrative brings to life the cops-and-robbers jousting of Prohibition-era New York. Aficionados of the city’s underground history should take a look. (Aug.)