INSPECTOR OLDFIELD AND THE BLACK HAND SOCIETY

Before the Mafia, there was the Black Hand, an Italian-American organized crime ring that preyed on recent immigrants from the old country. Author and seasoned journalist Victoria Bruce has teamed up with William Oldfield, the great-grandson of Frank Oldfield, to tell this often overlooked story of crime and justice in pre-war America.

Before the Mafia, there was the Black Hand, an Italian-American organized crime ring that preyed on recent immigrants from the old country. In the early part of the twentieth century, the FBI didn’t exist and local law enforcement was clueless – most didn’t believe the Black Hand existed, and frightened victims rarely spoke out. The gangsters had their way. INSPECTOR OLDFIELD AND THE BLACK HAND SOCIETY tells the story of one man’s mission to end the reign of America’s first international crime ring. Interestingly, at the beginning of the last century, Postal Inspectors possessed powers of detection and law enforcement that would make today’s FBI blush. Inspector Frank Oldfield, with a passion and drive that rivaled Harry Truman, used the full force of these powers to bring the Black Hand to justice in a series of arrests and trials that stunned the nation, and introduced the notion of organized crime to the USA for the first time.

Author and seasoned journalist Victoria Bruce has teamed up with William Oldfield, the great-grandson of Frank Oldfield, to tell this often overlooked story of crime and justice in pre-war America. Victoria Bruce is the author of No Apparent Danger (HarperCollins, 2001), Hostage Negotiation (Knopf, 2010), and her newest book, Sellout, scheduled to publish in 2017 by Bloomsbury. Bill “Hammy” Oldfield brings a treasure trove of family and historical documentation to the story, including interviews with descendants of Black Hand victims and members.