Glennis Dennehy and Greg Newbold: The Girls in the Gang

By MARGIE THOMSON

If you've wondered how and why women get involved with gangs, and about the dynamics that keep them there, this book will enlighten you as it shines a torch into a dark and scary corner of our society.

It's not a comforting read but because Dennehy has interviewed women who, like herself, are former gang associates, we are treated to a series of happy endings probably not achieved by most of the women who find themselves in these relationships of violence and intimidation.

Dennehy left her gangster husband (Kotahikawa, "The Bitter One") in 1991 after a particularly savage beating, and three years later enrolled at Canterbury University. Her Masters thesis, which earned her first-class honours in 2000, has metamorphosed into this book.

The result is riveting, appalling and thoughtful in its assessment and depictions of gang culture, inter-male relationships, and the way it shows brutal treatment of women acting as a kind of glue between mates who are bound together in a web of intimidation and complicated power relationships. One can only respect these women whose voices we hear here, who have got out alive and managed, with great difficulty, to set a new course for themselves.

Reed

$29.95