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    The Black Hand
    The Black Hand
    The Black Hand
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Black Hand

    Written by Will Thomas

    Narrated by Antony Ferguson

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    When an Italian assassin's body is found floating in a barrel in Victorian London's East End, enquiry agent Cyrus Barker and his assistant Thomas Llewelyn are called in to investigate. Soon corpses begin to appear all over London, each accompanied by a Mafia Black Hand note. As Barker and Llewelyn dig deeper, they become entangled in the vendettas of rival Italian syndicates-and it is no longer clear who is a friend or foe.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateApr 11, 2017
    ISBN9781515983835
    The Black Hand
    Author

    Will Thomas

    WILL THOMAS is the author of the Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn series, including The Black Hand, The Hellfire Conspiracy, The Limehouse Text, To Kingdom Come, and the Shamus and Barry award-nominated Some Danger Involved. He lives with his family in Oklahoma.

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    Reviews for The Black Hand

    4/5

    116 ratings9 reviews

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    • 5/5
      The Mafia is inserting itself into the criminal underworld of Victoria London. Since Scotland Yard has been unable to put a halt to the Black Hand, Barker and LLewelyn step forward to put an end to the Mafia's trying to over the London docks. But at what cost? Llewelyn has already been in a knife fight with one member of this criminal element as well as the owner of an Italian restaurant has been murdered. Can the two crime fighters put an end to the Black Hand before more bodied pile up? An excellent Victorian London mystery.
    • 4/5
      Once again a masterful tale of mystery from Victorian times. Good strong characters and believable situations with the right kind of out comes. If you like mysteries you should rear this series from the start, you won't be disappointed.
    • 3/5
      This book was okay. Not as good as the books which preceded it in the series. The story starts off well with Barker and Llewelyn investigating three murders which are unique in the way they were carried out but the story then starts to come apart a bit. Nothing much happens for a good portion of the tale, with meetings between the characters and general build up to an ending which falls flat. I like the Barker & Llewelyn novels and wanted to like this book more than I did, but it feels the author ran out of ideas near the start and padded out the story until there was sufficient pages to call it a novel. Most of the way things were solved and explained seemed very convenient for the main characters to have solved. There's even a "getting out of London" passage that just didn't need to be in the novel at all. It gives me the feeling it was just to introduce Barkers "secret" lady friend and deepen the mystery surrounding him more. Maybe she appears in the next installment. I'll continue to read this series. They are a quick read. But I'm really hoping this isn't a sign that the ideas have run dry and that the series is being used as a way of cadging a quick buck.
    • 4/5
      The fifth in the series sees Barker and Llewellyn take on the Mafia, with help from socialist dockworkers, fisherman and the Camorra. Again, the identity of the villain was obvious, but the details and the unveiling of more of Barker's history kept me reading and enjoying this one.
    • 4/5
      Another great installment in the Barker/Llwelyn series. Atleast as good as its predecessors. Nineteenth century London is as good as it gets for detective fiction.
    • 4/5
      With each mystery in this series, author Will Thomas explores another area of Victorian London. In The Black Hand, after the body of a well-known Italian assassin is found floating in a barrel in the Thames, we're taken to Clerkenwell. It seems that Sicily has grown too small and the Mafia is seeking to increase its territory by moving into London. The bodies begin to pile up, rival gangs are pitted against each other, and private enquiry agents Barker and Llewelyn have their hands full.As always in this series, it is the characters and the setting that shine supreme. Barker is a mysterious Victorian version of James Bond, and his young assistant, Thomas Llewelyn, is the perfect callow foil to all his seriousness. Llewelyn talks us through the streets of Victorian London, tries to figure out his enigmatic boss, and never misses an opportunity to appreciate a pretty female. That Llewelyn genuinely wants to learn and be the best assistant to Barker that he can only adds to the story.A bonus in The Black Hand is that we get to go on a short journey away from London and learn about the woman in Barker's life. There's so much testosterone and action in these books that the feminine touch felt like a lovely sea breeze through the pages. It also added another character about whom I want to know more!As long as Will Thomas writes about his private enquiry agents, I will read their adventures. Thomas brings nineteenth-century London to life, his characters are interesting and fun, and the action keeps the pages turning quickly. If you're in the mood for some Victorian mystery and adventure, Will Thomas is an excellent author to try.
    • 4/5
      As any reasonably serious reader knows, one of the disadvantages of having an author whose next release you're always anxiously awaiting is that once the new book comes out, you tend to devour it quickly. You savor the experience, but then, almost before you know it, are left asking, once again, "How long until the next one?"That's the experience I'm having this morning after reading "The Black Hand" during evenings and travel times on an out-of-town trip. Can this really be the fifth Barker and Llewelyn mystery already? The characters continue to intrigue, Llewelyn particularly continues to mature as a person and as a character, and Will Thomas continues to impress not only with his research, but with his ability to take us deep into the economic and ethnic subcultures of 1880s London. Each of the Barker and Llewelyn novels have been an intriguing balance of the somewhat-familiar (late nineteenth century London, at a time when Sherlock Holmes is in the early stages of his own career) and the very unfamiliar (the worlds of the Irish, Chinese, Jewish, or in this case Italian urban underclass). Thomas' ability to maintain this balance is one of the remarkable features of the series.For all its merit as a story of murder and mayhem (have the other books been quite as bloody as this one? I can't entirely recall), "The Black Hand" is a particularly noteworthy milestone in the relationship of our principal characters themselves. For one thing, we learn more about Barker the man and his mysterious background than in any volume since he was introduced. Llewelyn, for his part, is visibly maturing -- a fact Barker acknowledges in a way fans may find touching. As Barker becomes less of a man of mystery (if only slightly) and Llewelyn grows in confidence and ability, it suggests an interesting new dynamic for -- one hopes and assumes there will be -- later volumes.Most of my review has been in the context of "The Black Hand" as part of a series, and that's certainly how it works best. But it also works well as a standalone murder mystery and I think fans of the genre will enjoy both the twists of the tale and the distinctive narrative viewpoint. As well, of course, as the author's ability to synthesize a huge amount of information into a convincing but not overwhelming level of period detail. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next.
    • 4/5
      The 5th installment in Will Thomas' Barker/Llewellyn series, The Black Hand tells how our heroes deal with an incursion into London by the Mafia. The series has been a favorite, and I thought this one was easily as good as the rest, both for the plot itself and for the new information revealed about Barker. The plotting was tight, the prose was outstanding, and the characters as real as ever. On top of everything else, I got to read it front-to-back on an airplane ride - a great way to pass the time!Highly recommended, but those new to the series should start with the first one to get the full experience.
    • 4/5
      Thomas' new novel, "The Black Hand” is number 5 in the Cyrus Barker/Thomas Llewelyn series. In this installment, the two enquiry agents are hired by the government to try to thwart the establishment of a group of Sicilians known collectively as the Mafia from infiltrating the British underworld. There are also fears that these troublemakers will begin a reign of extortion, murder and other nefarious deeds. Several people have been found dead and the manner of their deaths is known to be those used by the Sicilians. Somehow these people have to be stopped, and soon, especially since the criminals hit very close to home for our heroes. The author also gives his readers a very brief history of the Mafia (up to that time, of course), which was very interesting. I've really enjoyed all of the Barker/Llewelyn series, and while I enjoyed this one, it wasn't my favorite of the five. I figured out the plot twist pretty early on, which kind of disappointed me, and it just seemed a bit flat storywise, not as exciting as some of the previous novels in the series. . Overall it was still a pretty good read; the reader learns more about the enigmatic character of Cyrus Barker, which is a plus. I'd recommend it, but I strongly urge readers who may be considering the series to start with the first one, Some Danger Involved, and to read through the books in order. Now, I wonder how long I'll have to wait for the next one?