Joseph Leslie 'Squizzy' Taylor was many things to many people: a kind and caring husband, father and stepfather, a reliable son and brother, a generous and considerate neighbour and patron. He was also a criminal willing to consider any type of crime, provided it supported his lifestyle and his ego.

Squizzy graduated from teenage pickpocket to adult murderer, from organising smash-and-grab raids on jewellers to corrupting juries and suborning witnesses. And he was nothing if not newsworthy, whether appearing at the opening night of a new show at the top end of Bourke Street or climbing the steps en route to an appearance in the Supreme Court.

For more than a decade, Victoria's best detectives were unable to pin any one of a dozen major crimes on him. Yet Squizzy ultimately met his match in street-punk-turned-gunman Snowy Cutmore in a darkened bedroom in a boarding house in Carlton.

In this first detailed biography of arguably Australia's best-known standover man, Ian W. Shaw traces the life of the criminal who set the trend in city gangster life, not only in Melbourne but Australia-wide.