Pearl Taylor left her conventional home and life in Toledo, Ohio, to take up gambling on the Mississippi. She survived life in a boom camp in the Arizona Territory and ultimately became an outlaw. Once caught, she awaited trial for an armed stagecoach robbery, while reporters dubbed her "The Bandit Queen".
There followed a desperate escape from jail, and a dramatic re-capture in Deming. Finally, sentenced to five years, Pearl Hart had the dubious honor of being the first woman sent to the Yuma Penitentiary in the Arizona Territory.

Jane Candia Coleman has written Pearl's story from the memoirs of the "Bandit Queen," with personal insights that go behind the headlines of the day to reveal this real woman of the Wild West.