The Italian Squad The True Story of the Immigrant Cops Who Fought the Rise of the Mafia [Audiobook]

Drawing on new primary sources such as private diaries, and city, state, and federal documents, this narrative history follows the Italian Squad across the first two decades of the twentieth century as its detectives battled increasingly powerful gangsters, political obstacles, and deeply ingrained prejudice against their own beloved Italian immigrant community. Vachris, Corrao, and Fiaschetti became, like Petrosino, famous for meting out tough justice to criminals who comprised the "Black Hand." Beyond trying to prevent horrific crimes-nighttime bombings, kidnappings that targeted children at play, shootings that killed innocent bystanders-the Italian Squad commanders hoped to persuade society of what they knew for themselves: that their fellow immigrant Italians, so often maligned, would make good American citizens.