The remarkable true story of a beguiling 1920s housewife who seeks international fame, fortune and adventure as an aviator but finds herself the central figure in a sensational Miami murder trial.
“Mrs Keith Miller, internationally known aviatrix, was taken to the county jail here today and held for investigation by State Attorney's investigators. Jail attendants said they understood she was held in connection with the shooting of an airline pilot.”
Petite, glamorous and charming, Jessie “Chubbie” Miller was a remarkable woman: flyer, thrill-seeker, heartbreaker. No adventure was too wild for her, no danger too extreme. And all over the world men adored her.
When young Jessie left Australia and her newspaperman husband in 1927, little did she know that she'd become the first woman to complete an England to Australia flight (with a black silk gown thrown into her tiny flight bag, just in case), or fly in the first women's air race—with Amelia Earhart—or that she would disappear over the Bermuda Triangle feared lost forever.
Nor could she have predicted that five years later she'd find herself in Miami at the center of one of the most notorious and controversial murder trials in US history.
And her adventures all began with something as ridiculously mundane as a pat of butter.
The Fabulous Flying Mrs Miller is a spellbinding story of an extraordinary woman—an international celebrity during the golden age of aviation—and her passionate and spirited life.
“Carol Baxter's highly readable biography provides an engaging portrait of a young suburban housewife who decided, quite literally, to make her own way in the world. As Baxter acknowledges, for a biographer it is a tremendous story that just keeps on giving. This book does it justice.”
Australian Book Review
“This thrilling biography…Readers will enjoy coming along for the ride.”
Publishers Weekly
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Praise for The Peculiar Case of the Electric Constable:
“Fans of Erik Larson's true-crime thrillers will be pleased by this gripping account...With a novelist's flair for drama, using details that were painstakingly extracted from the historical record, Australian popular historian Baxter recreates the life of suspect John Tawell. Baxter does a stellar job of integrating details about the nascent forensic science of the time, questions about the role of expert witnesses in jury trials, and the insatiable public hunger for salacious details about the case.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Australian historian Carol Baxter melds true crime and science in the gripping The Peculiar Case of the Electric Constable…Baxter's accounts of the telegraph's technology, the prevailing cultural climate regarding murder and poisonings, contemporary forensic methods and Tawell's personal history are all worthy of an engrossing thriller…Expertly told…a captivating accomplishment in nonfiction.”
—Shelf Awareness
