Mary kay Mcbrayer
Author of
Madame Queen: The Life and Crimes of Stephanie St. Clair
(Park Row, 2025)
America’s First Female Serial Killer: Jane Toppan and the Making of a Monster (Mango, 2020)
Mary Kay McBrayer received her MFA in non-fiction creative writing from Georgia College & State University. Her writing has appeared in Oxford American, Narratively, Mental Floss, New/Lines Magazine, FANGORIA, Architectural Digest, and elsewhere. She co-hosts Everything Trying to Kill You, the comedy podcast that analyzes your favorite horror movies from the perspectives of women of color. She’s also the writer and co-host of the feminist podcast, Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told.
Books by Mary Kay
Madame Queen: The Life and Crimes of Stephanie St. Clair (Park Row, 2025)
Part overlooked history, part true crime, and part fast-paced drama, Madame Queen is the dazzling story of the legendary Harlem mobstress, Madame Stephanie St. Clair. Unapologetically ruthless, St. Clair was one of the only female crime bosses within the 1930’s Harlem numbers racket and fiercer than most of her male competitors. Distinctly glamorous, she was a self-made businesswoman who wielded her savvy and smarts to chart a path from domestic worker and dressmaker to successful crime boss. And despite being both a philanthropist and Harlem folk-hero who invested her wealth back into neighborhood businesses while speaking out against police corruption, St Clair’s story has mostly been lost to history. Until now.
Told in six parts, Madame Queen chronicles the meteoric rise and heartbreaking fall of Madame Stephanie St. Clair, including her migration from Guadeloupe at age 11 and the tough choices that a young girl would have to make (and the family she would choose to leave behind) to become Madame Queen; her vicious turf war against Dutch Schultz and the Jewish mob, which she won by using strategy over brute force; and her downfall via a turbulent romance with the exceedingly charismatic and charming charlatan, Sufi Abdul Hamid. Full of grit, glamor, and deliciously high stakes, MADAME QUEEN breathes life into the brilliant woman that history forgot.
America’s First Female Serial Killer: Jane Toppan and the Making of a Monster (Mango, 2020)
America’s First Female Serial Killer novelizes the true story of first-generation Irish-American nurse Jane Toppan, born as Honora Kelley. Although all the facts are intact, books about her life and her crimes are all facts and no story. Jane Toppan was absolutely a monster, but she did not start out that way. When Jane was a young child, her father abandoned her and her sister to the Boston Female Asylum. From there, Jane was indentured to a wealthy family who changed her name, never adopted her, wrote her out of the will, and essentially taught her how to hate herself. Jilted at the altar, Jane became a nurse and took control of her life, and the lives of her victims.