Look, I don't want to say I'm psychic or anything, but about four years ago I started a Facebook group called Underbelly 3: Squizzy Taylor, and suggested that the tales of Melbourne and Sydney's warring gangs in the '20s and '30s were ripe for the picking as far as everyone's favourite true crime series was concerned.

I took the liberty of reminding everyone a year ago, throwing "Razorhurst" vice queens Kate Leigh and Tilly Devine into the mix for good measure.

And while Nine didn't take me up on my excellent casting suggestion of Magda Szubanski as Devine and Paula Duncan as Leigh, they've smartly decided that it's time to put the '70s paper money to rest and take a trip even further back into Australia's seamy history: yes, Razorhurst in the '20s and '30s.

Underbelly: Razor details the drawn-out war between Leigh (Danielle Cormack) - a sly grog merchant - and Devine (Chelsie Preston Crayford) - a madam - and the Sydney (and Melbourne) gangsters who tried to bring them down: Norman Bruhn (Jeremy Lindsay Taylor) and his razor gang, which includes notorious psychopath "Snowy" Cutmore (Matt Boesenberg), and Phil "The Jew" Jeffs (Felix Williamson).

Thrown into the mix is teenage runaway and prostitute Nellie Cameron (Anna McGahan) and Australia's first female cop, Lillian Armfield (Lucy Wigmore), who works with the district's "fallen women". And there are plenty of them around. 

The first, telemovie-length episode - The Worst Woman In Sydney - sets the scene for the rest of the series, as Bruhn is dispatched to Sydney by Squizzy Taylor (Justin Rozniak) to bring down Leigh and Devine's reign, setting wheels in motion to turn the two against each other - not much of a task, really, since Devine already stole Leigh's pedigree lap dog, doing a switcheroo with her own infertile, inbred mutt (given a makeover with a bit of peroxide).

Sixteen-year-old middle class schoolgirl Cameron fronts up at Devine's newest brothel, looking for work; despite Constable Armfield's best attempts to sway her decision, she becomes the happiest hooker in Darlinghurst, sleeping her way to the top (at least the top as it stands so far) with Bruhn.

There are a few shaky moments, but for the most part, Underbelly: Razor looks set to be a gripping addition to the franchise.

And, given the various series' gradual slide into something bordering on self-parody, the grimness of Razor will no doubt come as a shock to many (and please the rest): there's something much more disturbing about these various psychopaths' approaches to gang violence. Since they'll "swing" if they're caught shooting up foes, Bruhn and his boys decide to carry cut-throat razors, so they can slice and dice and, if pulled up by the cops, tell them "I'm just on me way home for a shave".

Similarly, rather than taking the Satisfaction route of glamming up the oldest profession, Razor's depiction of brothel life in the '20s is grim; when one of "the girls" finds herself in the family way, Devine barks "In the backyard, now!" - where her husband Big Jim (Jack Campbell) administers a few swift, hard punches to the poor girl's abdomen.

Once again the music team has outdone itself, too: in one early scene at Leigh's speakeasy, patrons drunkenly Charleston in slow-mo to a big-band version of The Nips Are Getting Bigger. Later, Bruhn and his thugs set out to slash up Sydney's toughest men to the tune of Cloud Control's Gold Canary.

It's also a hoot to hear Underbelly gangsters swearing in a less 'modern' manner (George "The Midnight Raper" Wallace barking "Piss off, I'm 'aving me tea" while tucking into a giant bowl of baked beans was a particular highlight for me) and there's rhyming slang and Australian colloquialisms everywhere. "Give us a butcher's atcha thrupenny bits!"

I'm also pleased to report that - given the franchise's predilection for nungas - the breasts on show are all appropriately "1920s": either sagging and pendulous or pert handfuls.

Like most of the Underbelly franchise the casting is a mix of spot on (Boesenberg as Cutmore) and hilariously off (Cormack and Crayford aren't much of a match for their stern, squat real-life equivalents), but only those who have an intimate knowledge of the Razorhurst world (*cough*) will notice, and even those who do will eventually be won over (*raises hand*).

Grimy, glam and gruesome in equal measure, Underbelly: Razor has finally brought one of Australia's most bloodcurdling crime wars to the screen. How the rest of the 13-episode miniseries pans out remains to be seen, but The Worst Woman In Sydney is a very promising start.

Underbelly: Razor is expected to screen on Nine in mid-August.