Thomas Hunt

  There's plenty of interesting reading in Informer's 2024 issue, The Treacherous World of Joseph Valachi   (shown in hardcover above - red bow not included).  The issue is available for online purchase in (easily wrapped) hardcover book, paperback book and magazine formats. (Electronic book and magazine editions are available too, but good luck getting a bow to stick to those.) Books are sold through Amazon:  https://amzn.to/3ZxMwR6 Magazines are sold through MagCloud: https://informer.magcloud.com Click here for more information.

Gangster Hunters How Hoover’s G-Men Vanquished America’s Deadliest Public Enemies by John Oller John Oller’s meticulously researched account of the FBI’s early days is due to be released by Dutton (imprint of Penguin Publishing Group) on November 26, 2024. John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd – these infamous Depression-era criminals have been immortalized as some of the most vicious felons in our history, but they share another commonality: every single one was brought down by the Federal Bureau of Investigation during a chaotic war on crime, which started in 1933 and thrust the FBI into the national spotlight for the first time.  Surprisingly little has been written about field-level agents responsible for hunting down the most dangerous criminals and bringing them to justice... until now. In this new book, Gangster Hunters , critically acclaimed author John Oller (also author of the 2021 release Rogues Galle...

The Bulldog Detective: William J. Flynn and America's First War Against the Mafia, Spies, and Terrorists by Jeffrey D. Simon was released today (January 16, 2024). It is available in hardcover and ebook formats through popular booksellers Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com , as well as through academic nonfiction publisher, Rowman & Littlefield . Publisher's description :  America in the early twentieth century was rife with threats. Organized crime groups like the Mafia, German spies embedded behind enemy lines ahead of World War I, package bombs sent throughout the country, and the 1920 Wall Street bombing dominated headlines. Yet the story of the one man tasked with combating these threats has yet to be told.  The Bulldog Detective: William J. Flynn and America’s First War Against the Mafia, Spies, and Terrorists  is the first book to tell the story of Flynn, the first government official to bring down the powerful Mafia, uncover a sophisticated German spy ring i...

Friend and colleague Justin Cascio has penned a book-length discussion of transatlantic family connections of Corleone, Sicily, mafiosi. In Our Blood: The Mafia Families of Corleone , now available through Amazon in hardcover, paperback and ebook editions, is Cascio's first book. The Mafia criminal society is traditionally viewed as a hierarchical organization, but Cascio argues that Mafia networks are largely based on kinship ties.  He has poured years of his research into this project. The publisher of the Mafia Genealogy website and a frequent contributor to Informer journal, Cascio is highly regarded as an underworld historian and genealogist. He notes that pivotal figures in Mafia history, including present-day mafiosi, have direct ties to one another and to the earliest recorded gangs in Corleone, Sicily. In addition to bloodline and marriage connections, some mafiosi also linked through the significant religious/family role of godparent.  Cascio discusses dozens o...

I recently received this as a gift. It was probably acquired through an auction in the Shoreham, Vermont, area. History of the Wright Family , edited by William Henry Wright and Gertrude Wright Ketcham, Copyright 1913 by Gertrude Wright Ketcham. It is an extensive genealogy and history of the Wright Family "who are descendants of Samuel Wright (1722-1789) of Lenox, Mass., with lineage back to Thomas Wright (1610-1670) of Wethersfield, Conn., and showing a direct line to John Wright, Lord of Kelvedon Hall, Essex, England." According to the book's introduction, the genealogical research began with a great-grandfather, Andrew Wright of Shoreham, Vermont. It was learned that Andrew Wright was a soldier in the Revolutionary War and left his home in Lenox, Mass. to settle in Shoreham in 1785. The physical book seems a product of considerable labor and expense. The cover appears to be suede or some similar soft material with gold lettering. (I do not know ...

The current issue of Vermont's esteemed alternative newsweekly, Seven Days , provides readers with a glimpse of my recently released book , Wrongly Executed? The Long-Forgotten Context of Charles Sberna's 1939 Electrocution . That such a fine periodical took notice of my work and decided it was worth sharing with readers is an honor. Thank you to Seven Days and to arts reporter Sadie Williams. See: "Page 32: Short Takes on Five Vermont Books," Seven Days , March 8, 2017, p. 23. Wrongly Executed? on Amazon.com.

The Goodreads.com book giveaway has concluded. A total of 863 people entered for a chance to win one of three signed paperback copies of Wrongly Executed? . Winners, selected at random by Goodreads, were located in northern Illinois; Hillsborough County, Florida; and Hocking County, Ohio. Thanks to all who entered and to Goodreads for hosting the promotion.

Three author-signed trade paperback copies of Wrongly Executed? The Long-Forgotten Context of Charles Sberna's 1939 Electrocution will be awarded through a promotional drawing on Goodreads.com . No purchase is necessary to enter. Entries will be accepted until Jan. 5, 2017, the anniversary of Charles Sberna's meeting with the Sing Sing Prison electric chair. Details are available on the Goodreads.com website . Goodreads Book Giveaway Wrongly Executed? - The Long-Forgotten Context of Charles Sberna's 1939 Electrocution by Thomas Hunt Giveaway ends January 05, 2017. See the giveaway details at Goodreads. Enter Giveaway

Sing Sing Warden Lewis Lawes had no doubt on the evening of January 5, 1939: He had just presided over the electric-chair-execution of an innocent man. The prison chaplain and many guards also felt that convicted cop-killer Charles Sberna had been sent to his death unjustly. Lawes made his feelings known in a published book a short time later. Syndicated Broadway columnist Walter Winchell also called attention to the flawed case against Sberna in the summer of 1939 and again early in 1942. According to Winchell, the government knew that District Attorney Thomas Dewey's office had sent an innocent man to the chair and was providing "hush money" payments to Sberna relatives. Since then, opponents of capital punishment have included Sberna's name in collections of those deemed "wrongly executed" and have used the case as a somewhat vague example of the possibility of death penalty error. Still, little is known about Sberna or the circumstances that led him to...

A number of writer-friends and I recently launched a blog that provides news, notes and book excerpts related to crime-history projects. We are calling the blog, The Writers of Wrongs . So far, posts have been provided by Christian Cipollini (author of Lucky Luciano: Mysterious Tales of a Gangland Legend ; Murder Inc.: Mysteries of the Mob's Most Deadly Hit Squad ; Diary of a Motor City Hit Man ), Patrick Downey (author of Hollywood on the Spot ; Gangster City ; Legs Diamond: Gangster ; Bad Seeds in the Big Apple ) and, of course, me. We expect to have contributions from additional crime-history authors in the very near future. With big name publishers apparently disinterested in solid histories that dispute the tired oft-published myths of the past and with smaller publishers offering little to nothing in the way of book promotion services, this blog serves the interests of authors and readers. All crime-history authors are welcome to submit news releases to the blog, and an ...

I have been finishing up a manuscript relating to the 1939 electric-chair execution of convicted cop-killer Charles Sberna. Sberna's name is frequently mentioned by opponents of capital punishment as an example of a wrongful execution. I first wrote an article on the subject years back for the On the Spot Journal published by the late Rick "Mad Dog" Mattix, and I have been accumulating additional information since that time. My original article (a version can be found on my American Mafia history website ) touched on the trial evidence and Sberna's criminal background. It argued that the evidence of Sberna's involvement with two other men in the killing of Officer John H.A. Wilson appeared inconclusive but that it would be a misuse of the word "innocent" ever to apply it to Sberna, who was a habitual wrongdoer. The data acquired since then - trial testimony and evidence, legal appeals, witness statements and tons of background material - has done l...

Just acquired a copy of The Other Nuremberg by Arnold C. Brackman. I don't know why it took me so long to get the book, which was released back in the mid-1980s. I suppose I was a little spooked by the fact that the manuscript was completed during the time I was Arnold Brackman's journalism student at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury. He died just after finishing it. Mr. Brackman was a dynamic and passionate teacher. He was physically small but had a presence that commanded attention and respect. I recall his gray, carelessly combed hair, his bright blue eyes, and his crooked fingers, flattened at the ends, likely from years of "hammering" news stories out of manual typewriters. I recall his preference for Foster's lager (I scrupulously avoid the beverage, waiting for an appropriate moment) and for watching baseball but nothing else on television. And I remember a scarf-like thing, with small pockets in the ends, that he wore on cold winter days. Mr...

I've been spending some time lately designing a website to supplement the book Mike Tona and I are completing. The site and the book ( DiCarlo: Buffalo's First Family of Crime ) will contain information on the Mafia in western New York. Some of the site skeleton is in place and can be viewed at these web addresses: dicarlobook.com , buffalomob.com . Initially, the most eye-catching aspect of the site probably will be the horizontal "crawler" of mugshots across the top of the main entrance page. The crawler, based on a design by John Davenport Scheuer, will allow visitors to link to biographies of mob figures by clicking on mugshots. If anyone decides to take a look at the fledgling website and would like to provide feedback, comments can be added to this post or emailed to info@dicarlobook.com.

Some recent Facebook posts prompted me to read through Mark Twain's assessment of Christian Science. Twain was at his sarcastic best in the opening of the book. He relates a tale, in which he was horribly hurt during a fall from a mountain ledge and required medical care for broken bones. Unfortunately, the only healthcare workers in the area were a horse-doctor and a Christian Science healer. He opts for the latter and begins receiving treatment for his fractures remotely. When the healer visits her patient the next day, the two enter into a wonderful conversation about reality and illusion. You can download the book to your Amazon Kindle for free.