My Washington Times Review Of 'The Black Hand: The Epic War Between A Brilliant Detective And The Deadliest Secret Society In American History'

The Washington Times published my review of The Black Hand: The Secret War Between a Brilliant Detective and the Deadliest Secret Society in American History.

My mother was Italian and I grew up in South Philadelphia, the city’s “Little Italy” section and the hub of the Cosa Nostra organized crime family in the Philadelphia and South Jersey area.

When I was a teenager in the 1960s I lived around the corner from Angelo Bruno, who was then the mob boss. I also lived around the corner from Richard Zappile, who became Philadelphia’s chief of detectives. He served as the city’s point man against the mob and in 1993 he broke up a particularly violent internecine mob war. The late Mr. Zappile went on to become the first deputy police commissioner and deputy mayor.

Yes, Virginia, there are Italian-American criminals. But there are also Italian-American law enforcement officers who are not afraid to take on organized crime.

Stephan Talty’s “The Black Hand” is about an earlier Italian-American police officer who faced a group of Italian criminals who were the precursors to Cosa Nostra. Italian immigrants in New York City in the early 1900s called these feared criminals “La Mana Nera,” The Society of the Black Hand.

The Black Hand members were extortionists, kidnappers, bombers and murderers. Initially they preyed upon the Italian immigrant community, but they later branched out. They kidnapped children and held them for ransom and they extorted money from small business owners.

…But there was one police officer, an Italian-American, one of the few on the force, who cared very much for the community and hated the Black Hand.

“Joseph Petrosino was the head of the famous Italian Squad, a short, stout, barrel-chested man, built like a stevedore,” Mr. Talty writes.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jun/11/book-review-the-black-hand/ 

Note: Below are photos of the late Joseph Petrosino:

The Black Hand: The Self-Made Cop Who Took On A Notorious Criminal Syndicate

Nick Poppy at the New York Post offers a piece on a new book about an Italian-American police officer who fought the Black Hand.

The terror might come in the mail, or in an envelope slipped under the door. Or a note tacked to the wall. Pay up, it would say. Give us the money. Or your child dies. Go to the police, your child dies.

The letter would be unsigned. But everyone would know who had sent it: the dreaded Society of the Black Hand, a shadowy criminal organization that targeted Italian immigrants to the US in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The recipients of such a note had few options. If they did nothing, the Society might make good on its promises. Its threats weren’t empty — the Society was responsible for bombings, arson, kidnappings and murders. The Society’s targets could meet the extortioners’ exorbitant demands, and pay the hard-earned ransom — though inevitably, that would lead to demands for more money.

Because they were immigrants and because they were Italian, Black Hand victims typically could count on little help from officials. In New York, the bulwark against Black Hand was extraordinarily thin, but also very tough. It consisted chiefly of one man: a dark-suited, opera-loving bruiser of a cop with a photographic memory, a sixth grade education and fists like iron, named Joseph (Giuseppe) Petrosino.

For more than 20 years, Petrosino waged an almost single-handed war against the Society of the Black Hand. It was as much a war for the place of Italian immigrants in American society, for their rights to exist and to be seen as Americans worthy of legal protection.

It’s a story recounted in Stephen Talty’s engrossing new book, “The Black Hand: The Epic War Between a Brilliant Detective and the Deadliest Secret Society in American History” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://nypost.com/2017/04/27/the-self-made-cop-who-took-on-a-notorious-criminal-society/