BLOODLINE: A NOVEL

BLOODLINE: A NOVEL                         WARREN MURPHY

A gritty historical novel about the Mafia in 1920s New York, from Edgar Award—winning author Warren Murphy

The Falcones are an immigrant family living in New York City in 1920. Their patriarch, Tony, is a respected policeman. His sons, Tommy and Mario, both served in the Great War and are now upstanding citizens—a cop and a priest. But their cousin Nilo has a dark past, and he fled to America after causing several deaths in a fight in Italy.

Nilo soon falls in with Don Maranzano, a Mafia boss who comes from his hometown in Italy. Maranzano grooms Nilo as a “real estate broker,” but after a few months, Nilo is offered the chance to do some serious work. He becomes a useful still-wrecker, assassin, and skilled criminal. The papers give him the name “Kid Trouble.” Tommy and Mario try to turn a blind eye, but it’s hard to hide his underworld affiliations.

As conflicts in the city begin to erupt into a violent war involving gangsters from all parts of the country, Tommy and Mario struggle to stay out of the dark world into which Nilo has dragged the family. But when things take a turn for the worse, the Mafia may be the only place for them to go. 

HUBBY'S REVIEW:

This is a good mafia story that starts at the beginning of WW1, with the Falcones, whose father is a police detective and one son goes to war and the other becomes a priest, and they have a daughter who is a singer. Their cousin Nilo comes over from Sicily after he was in trouble and needed to get away. What they did not know is that Nilo would be the destruction of everything that they thought was good. He takes away their family with the passion and hatred that is born in him. He also becomes a started solider and captain of a crime family but since he cannot control his hatred he destroys that part as well. A very well written book with good characters and a good history of the Mafia and its growth from the 20’s and how it not only affected a city but also the people who were trying to take down the Mafia as well. It also reminds me a little of a story no one talks about, and that is a police detective named Petrosino, who was in charge of the Italian squad because of his ability in solving crimes and also being able to speak the different dialects of the Italian language. In 1909 he made a trip to Sicily, Palermo and was looking for criminals who were from their and had taken residence in the United States. He was shot while waiting for an informant, and the day after his shooting the New York detectives branch received a letter stating that the Black Hand was behind the killing. It was said that Giuseppe Morello was behind the killing along with some others but nothing was proven. This was in 1909 and though this story starts during WW1 you must know that the Black Hand came to New York before that and that there was a group of Italian detectives who believed if they were not stopped they would take over the city and the country. This is exactly what happened especially when prohibition started and because they were able by then to corrupt some of the officials. You get some of this in this book. Overall a good book and good characters. I got this book from netgalley. I give this 4 stars.  Follow us at www.1rad-readerreviews.com