The Black Hand

The Black Hand: The Epic War Between a Brilliant Detective and the Deadliest Secret Society in American History (2017) is Stephan Talty’s compelling true story of the origins of the Mafia in America and the detective who gave his life over to put an end to it. In the summer of 1903, a sinister crime wave swept across New York City that included kidnappings, shootings, bombings, and threats to high-profile individuals. The perpetrators left only the symbol of a black hand as a calling card. Enter Joseph Petrosino, dubbed the “Italian Sherlock Holmes.” As the crimes grew increasingly bizarre and widespread, Joseph sought to end the reign of terror before the nation’s anti-immigrant attitudes came to a head. Joseph’s quest to discover the source of the Black Hand’s power would send him on a journey to Sicily, but at a terrible cost.

The Petrosinos immigrated to the United States in 1873, when Joseph was thirteen. In order to help financially support his family, Joseph left school after the sixth grade and began working full-time shoe shining, earning roughly a quarter a day. Around age eighteen, he was hired as a city street cleaner. Eventually, due to his work ethic and talent, as well as the intervention of a mentor, Joseph advanced to lead a scow that dumped municipal garbage in the Atlantic Ocean. In 1883, he was recruited by the police force of a place already considered the largest Italian city in the world.

In the early twentieth century, dozens of American cities and towns were being terrorized by the Black Hand, a loose network of Italian immigrants who demanded protection money from merchants, kidnapped children, and committed murders with near-impunity because fearful victims were reluctant to testify. Burnings and bombings, maiming and mutilation had become part of the daily lives of the Italian immigrant communities.



At the time, Italian Americans were belittled as “dagos” or “wops” (short for “without papers”), and as long as the crimes of the Black Hand remained within Little Italy, law enforcement and the political establishment hardly took notice. Talty’s story depicts the xenophobia toward Italian immigrants and the ceaseless bigotry they faced. “To be Italian in America was to be half-guilty,” says Talty. He notes an instance when an Irish judge once sentenced an Italian to death on charges of murder, adding that Italians “were too prone to commit crimes of that sort.” Joseph investigated the murder that incited the judge’s comment. He arrested the true murderer, and the innocent man was released.

Joseph was brought in to investigate the Black Hand, despite the failure of the New York Police Department to provide him with the manpower he required. During those years, the NYPD mostly employed Irish Americans who did not speak Italian or have very much interest in cooperating with Joseph.

Joseph was motivated to go after the Black Hand partly out of fear that authorities would eventually crack down on immigrants from Italy. However, he also sought to distinguish himself from his countrymen. Breaking with the Old-World tradition, Joseph remained single and lived isolated in a non-Italian part of the city. Among his talents, his impeccable memory for faces and his steadfast pursuit of leads earned him a promotion. He became a detective, led a small division of Italian cops, and was given the nickname “the Italian Sherlock Holmes.” Joseph worked with his “Italian Squad” and taught them how to decipher Black Hand letters and analyze handwriting for clues that could pinpoint the authors. He also searched for patterns in the choice of victims.



In spite of this success, Joseph encountered much discrimination within the New York Police Department, and his endeavors remained understaffed as the Black Hand extended its reach into other cities and states. However, this changed when Theodore Bingham became commissioner of police. Theodore, an ex-military engineer, made a favorite of Joseph and gave him the support he required.

Eventually, Joseph agreed to undergo a solo intelligence operation to search judicial records in Italy for possible deportations of criminals in the United States. He hoped to learn the names of individuals in Italian jails who might attempt to enter the country, and he set out to establish a spy network designed to provide information to the NYPD. However, mistakes were made in the operation, particularly regarding Joseph’s identity and the specifics of the assignment.

Joseph’s mission in Sicily ended in shots that were described as “detonations.” Police took fifteen minutes to reach the scene, which was in chaos. Some witnesses later retracted their stories, and others denied even hearing the fusillade. Talty contends that “Any of a thousand men could have done it. Petrosino’s murder was that rare thing, a truly collective crime.”



The murder of Joseph Petrosino caused an international outrage. Roughly 250,000 people attended his funeral. The terror of the Black Hand continued, but the police finally made combatting it a priority. Through Joseph’s valiant efforts, he had left a legacy that “changed the way Italians were seen in America.”