The Black Hand ― The Epic War Between a Brilliant Detective and the Deadliest Secret Society in American History

Beginning in the summer of 1903, an insidious crime wave stirred New York City, and then the entire country, into panic. The children of Italian immigrants were kidnapped and dozens of innocent victims gunned down. Bombs tore apart tenement buildings. The perpetrators seemed both omnipresent and invisible. Their only calling card: the symbol of a black hand.

Standing between the American public and the Black Hand’s lawlessness was Joseph Petrosino. Dubbed “the Italian Sherlock Holmes,” he was a famously dogged and ingenious detective and master of disguise. As the crimes grew ever more bizarre and the Black Hand’s activities spread far beyond New York’s borders, Petrosino and the all-Italian police squad he assembled raced to capture members of the secret criminal society before the country’s anti-immigrant tremors exploded into catastrophe.