Australian desperadoes. Terry Smyth. 2018.

In the roaring days of the 1850s California Gold Rush, San Francisco was the most dangerous town in America, made so by a notorious criminal gang: the Sydney Coves.

The Coves - San Francisco’s first organised-crime gang - were Australians: men and women with criminal careers who had come to the US, not to dig for gold, but to unleash a crime wave the likes of which America had never seen. Robbery, murder, arson and extortion were the Coves’ stock-in-trade, and it was said that the leader of the gang, Jim Stuart, had killed more men than anyone else in California.

The gang’s base, in the waterfront district, came to be known as Sydney Town -:a no-go zone for police, many of whom were in Stuart’s pocket anyway. Just as Capone would one day rule Chicago, the Coves ruled San Francisco. And, more than once, just to make sure there was no doubt that Drisco was their town, they burned it down.

The Coves were hated and feared by the respectable citizens of San Francisco. Realising that the law forces could not - or would not- take the Coves on, they decided lynch law was the only solution. The streets of San Francisco became a battlefield as the Coves and vigilantes fought for control of the city, with gunfights and lynchings almost daily. When the smoke cleared, the Coves’ reign of terror may have come to a close, but their thumbprint on American history would always remain.