Matriarch the story of ‘Granny Evil’ Kathy Pettingill. Adrian Tame. 2019.

Shocking, confronting and fascinating, the matriarch of the most violent and notorious criminal family in Australian history tells her side of the story.

Kathy Pettingill is a name that's both respected and feared, not only by Australia's criminal underworld, but by many in the Victorian police force. As the matriarch of Australia's most violent family of habitual offenders, her life has revolved around murder, drugs, prison, prostitution and bent coppers - and all the intrigue and horror that surround such crimes.

Her eldest son, Dennis Allen, was a mass murderer and a $70,000-a-week drug dealer who dismembered a Hell's Angel with a chainsaw. Two younger sons were acquitted of the Walsh Street murders, the cold-blooded assassination of two police officers that changed forever the face of crime in Melbourne.

One of the two, Victor, was gunned down himself in the street 14 years later, becoming the third son Pettingill has buried.

In this authorised new edition of Adrian Tame's bestselling

The Matriarch, Kathy Pettingill reveals the chilling truth behind many of the myths and legends that surround her family, including her experiences in the blood-spattered charnel house at the centre of Dennis Allen's empire of drugs and violence.

But this is no plea for pity. Forthright and deeply disturbing, like its subject, The Matriarch pulls no punches.