Book Review: The Black Hand

Stephan Talty, The Black Hand: the Epic War Between a Brilliant Detective and the Deadliest Secret Society in American history. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2017.  ISBN: 978-0-544-63338-4.

Genre: Nonfiction
Subgenre: history, biography, true crime
Format: hardback
Source: Berea branch of the Madison County (KY) Public Library

This book is a biography and history of Joseph Petrosino, the first Italian to ever join the NYPD. It  is also a look at the Black Hand, a criminal organization precursor to the Mafia that had clout and presence nationwide in the United States and back in Italy. Petrosino made it  his life mission to fight the Black Hand at a time in the U.S. when racism against Italians was high.

Petrosino was brilliant and talented. He also had a great memory and was a master of disguise. Yet he had to fight not only the Black Hand but also his own police department. His story illustrates the common thread of American racism where an immigrant group suffers racism and prejudice, eventually settle in, and then proceed to be racist assholes to the next immigrant group. This is the deal with the Irish and Italians. By this point in time, the Irish are settled in. They pretty much run New York City thanks to Tammany Hall and the fact they dominated the NYPD. The Irish now are being racist towards the Italians. Petrosino got into the NYPD because he had friends who helped, but otherwise he had to fight for every resource to fight the Black Hand. Often his only ally was the sensationalist press of his time willing to listen and publish his exploits and challenges. Add to this that, unlike the Irish who took pride in their own becoming cops, Italians viewed any cop, including Petrosino, with suspicion.

The book is an interesting story that traces Petrosino's rise and then his work leading the Italian Squad then his dedication going all the way back to Italy to fight the Black Hand. As I mentioned, the book is interesting, but the racism and frustrations Petrosino faced are hard to read at times.

A strength of the book is that it captures the history of New York City and the NYPD at the turn of the 19th century to the 20th century well. The author is skilled at bringing this time period to life. This is a real story, but  it often reads as a thriller. In the end, heavy as it was to read at times, I liked it.

3 out of 5 stars.

Additional reading notes:

How bad was the Black Hand?

"Only the Ku Klux Klan would surpass the Black Hand for the production of mass terror in the early part of the century" (xiii). 

On Petrosino's fame:

"It's telling that the most famous Italian American in the country in the late 1800s was the one deputized by the powerful to track down and imprison his fellow countrymen. There were artists and intellectuals among the migrants from the Old World-- classics professors, opera singers, stonemasons, who created great civic works-- but the country largely ignored them. It was Petrosino, the 'hunter of men' who fascinated the old American stock of Knickerbockers and WASPs, and they embraced him like no other Italian American of his time. It was as if the nation's idea of the Italian was so narrow and constricted that it could take in only two figures among the thousands entering through the gates of Ellis Island: the killer, who terrified Americans, and his opposite. The lawman. The savior" (19).

When you think about it, much of that  narrow and  constricted kind of thinking still thrives in the United States.