When the children of Italian immigrants were mysteriously kidnapped in the summer of 1903, no one knew quite what to make of it. But as the crime wave grew to include bombings that ripped tenements apart and innocent bystanders gunned down, it was determined no one was safe, even the highest members of New York society, such as the Rockefellers. The perpetrators, it seemed, were everywhere, lurking in the shadows and ready to take action at the slightest provocation. All anyone knew was that those who were responsible left a calling card: the symbol of a black hand. Joseph Petrosino, a dogged detective known as the Italian Sherlock Holmes, was determined to use his all-Italian police squad to root out the problem. Petrosino would devote his life to the cause, even going so far as to follow known members of the Black Hand back to Sicily, in order to avoid an all-out race war that he feared was inevitable.
298 pages.
