Inspector Oldfield and the Black Hand Society: America's Original Gangsters and the U.S. Postal Detective Who Brought Them to Justice (Hardcover)

I am in the midst of the 2019 reading challenge.  This is my second challenge year and I am 4 books behind schedule.  Yikes!  To make a framework for the books I would read, I established a reading protocol early in the year to make book selection easy and organized.  Each book chosen for this challenge must fall into one of the following categories:

     1. Authors recommended by other readers (author must be new to me)
     2. Any recommendations by my fellow readers of our online mystery reading group established in 1993 on Prodigy
    3. The next book in a series I have been reading
    4. The next book in a series I have abandoned (in an attempt to revive my interest)
    5. A book that references a historic event or period that is not in my lifetime  
    6. A book that references any historic event or a biography of a famous person who lived in my lifetime.  
    7. New mystery author with setting in USA.
    8. New mystery author with setting in western Europe.  

This novel satisfies Protocol #5

_____________________________________________

So--here is my review of a true crime, turn of the century story about life in America in the early days of the postal service.  I chose this book as my grandparents were young adults at the same time as the characters in this book .  I was curious to read about my grandparents' young adulthood and  American life.  

Also, I am not Italian so  I never  knew how the Mafia made their money.  But now I know.  And if you ever wondered how the postal routes were laid out as the country grew and took on new states and new migrations of Americans moving west, it is all in this book. 

This book is written by William Oldfield, (great grandson of Frank Oldfield) and Victoria Bruce, a journalist and historian.  Together they have delivered a cohesive story about Mafia's use of the postal service to execute their criminal activity.  The Mafia was using the Postal Service to extort money by mailing "pay up or die" letters to Italian immigrants.   William's great grandfather, Postal Service Investigator Frank Oldfield led the investigation and the take down of this Mafia ring.  It took years to bust this Mafia ring, but the effort resulted in the first international organized crime conviction in America.  The story flows smoothly from Investigator Oldfield's suspicions to discovery, to indictment, conviction and punishment of the Mafia's Black Hand Society, surprisingly to me, based in Columbus, Ohio.    I live in the NYC area and was sure it would be Brooklyn.  The investigative methods that Frank Oldfield used to break this case were fascinating.  Not so sure that any of them would work today.

This is not a spoiler:  The good guys always win, but this time, it was not so easy!!

So what happened to Frank Oldfield after the resolution of this investigation?  You will be surprised.  At minimum, he should have been awarded the "Stamp of Excellence".   But not so.  For years the story of Frank Oldfield's investigative work was kept hidden, unmentioned in  the postal service history and unknown to the Smithsonian National Postal Museum.   It seems that for a century, Frank Oldfield's story was only known in the family stories shared during family events and holidays.  

When William Oldfield became the heir apparent to the investigation records and collateral preserved by his great grandfather...he authored this Frank Oldfield story and it came to life again. 

This book was a pleasure to read and obviously an effort devoted to family pride.