Thomas Hunt

I figured I would give Stephan Talty's new book, "The Black Hand," a try. Any book that gets a movie deal involving Leonardo DiCaprio before it even has been released must be good, right? After many years of research into the Black Hand, Joseph Petrosino, the NYPD Italian Squad and the early Mafia, I have some familiarity with the subject matter. I acquired the Kindle version as it was released this morning. (Fourteen-ninety-nine?! For a stream of electrons? Are you KIDDING me?) I quickly looked it over. I noted that it has an index, a bibliography and some endnotes - items important to those of us who do research. I set to reading it, but I didn't get very far before I found something troubling. Chapter 1 begins with a description of what Talty claims was the first U.S. murder performed by a Sicilian "Black Hand Society." This was the killing of Francisco (Talty spelled the name Fransisco) Domingo on January 3, 1855. According to Talty, the victim w...

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.

On this date in 1939: Charles Sberna was executed in Sing Sing Prison's electric chair. Though convicted of participating in the killing of an NYPD officer, many to this day insist that he was innocent. As the son of a fugitive wanted for orchestrating a series of bloody anarchist-terrorist bombings and the in-law of a family of Mafia leaders, could Sberna possibly have received a fair trial? ' Wrongly Executed? ' provides the details and historical background of the Sberna case. The story is a complex and controversial one, involving celebrity attorneys, underworld bosses, violent political radicals, media giants and ruthless establishment figures, all set in a period in which Americans sought stability and government-imposed order after years of political upheaval, economic depression and Prohibition Era lawlessness.

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 ...