Mr Nice & Mrs Marks

Howard Markss story has passed into hippie folklore. At one time, the worlds then most wanted man had 43 aliases, 89 phone lines and 25 registered companies. Thanks to the technical brilliance of his networking skills, it was estimated that he was trafficking as much as a tenth of all the marijuana smoked in the world. But this is only half the story. Intimately involved throughout was Markss wife Judy. Now, for the first time, she tells her own side of the tale.

Judy was already involved in the hippie drug underworld before she met Howard. Her eldest brother Patrick was involved in a number of scams himself and eventually became, among other things, Howard's accountant and money-launderer. Rather than the shrinking wife at home, Judy was involved with the drug-running scams and often had to act as money courier and go-between abroad when Howard was stuck without a passport or identity. As if his absences were not difficult enough for the family, Judy spent eighteen months in jail herself. From living the high life hobnobbing with movie stars and euro trash to mixing it with the IRA and CIA, then the long, increasingly desperate years on the run, Mr Nice and Mrs Marks is about the exhilaration of their criminal life and the hell of not knowing what's happening when your husband stops telling you the truth and your life is steaming out of control. It is also a love story, and together Judy and Howard come across like a hippie Bonnie and Clyde.

Far more than a retelling of Howard's story, this is a warm, touching and often funny account of Judys unique role in an extraordinary husband-and-wife double act that spanned over three decades.

At the tender age of 16 Judy Marks fell in love with Howard. She was something of a wild child herself and she takes on her extraordinary journey.

Random House Australia
Author: Judy Marks
ISBN: 9780091909185