One of the most brutal episodes in American history shook the city of New Orleans in 1890, and in the process almost swept the United States into war with Italy. The subject remains a fascinating one, and the author reconstructs with force and authority the assassination of Police Chief David C. Hennessy by warring factions of the Sicilian Mafia and the tempestuous events that followed.
In this superbly researched historical novel, a mission of revenge assigned to the young Sicilian opera singer, Nicosia Savelli, draws the reader into an entanglement of family loyalties, as well as Savelli's involvement with the beautiful but doomed Rizza Martin and the tragically loyal Giuseppe Romano. Savelli meets Contessa Gironde, a waif of a girl consumed by a death wish. The fictionalized characters, drawn from the pages of history, live and breathe, and truth endures and prevails.