Josie de Bray was a brothel madam who owned most of Roe Street, Perth from WWI up to the 1940s. This immensely readable social history uses the life of Josie de Bray as conduit into the lives of her friends and competitors – the many women who paraded in their petticoats on the verandas of Roe Street, and who were kept from the public view and were secret keepers themselves in the seamier side of town.

‘Brilliant … Leigh Straw’s unflinching yet compassionate account brings vividly to life the flamboyant Perth madam Marie Monnier and the fascinating, brave women of red-light Rue de Roe.’ Larry Writer author of Razor