Goodreads asked Thomas Hunt:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Thomas Hunt The story of Charles Sberna first came to my attention during research into capital punishment errors. Listings of Americans believed to have been wrongly executed generally included Sberna and noted that he was convicted and executed for the murder of a police officer (John H.A. Wilson) though both he and a co-defendant testified that Sberna had no role in that killing.

Looking through newspaper archives, I happened across some Sberna mentions in the syndicated columns of Walter Winchell. Winchell was initially convinced of Sberna's innocence and even charged government officials of making "hush money" payments to cover up the matter. The columnist later changed his view very suddenly and then halted all comment on it.

At the time of these discoveries, I was email-conversing with historian Rick "Mad Dog" Mattix about his startup of the On the Spot Journal of "gangster era" crime and law enforcement history. I put together an article on Sberna, and Rick published it in the December 2006 issue of On the Spot.

That first article mentioned Charles Sberna's marriage into the Morello-Lupo-Terranova family, which had shaped the early Mafia in New York and across the U.S. I wondered if officials of the day may have had an unfavorable view of Sberna due to this connection. Sberna's own family link to early 20th Century anarchist-terrorists was unknown to me until later research into undercover NYPD Officer Amedeo Polignani.

It turned out that Giuseppe Sberna - father of Charles - was sought by local, state and federal authorities for his role in organizing a string of bloody bombings in major American cities. Despite law enforcement efforts that included inserting a spy into Giuseppe's inner circle, he managed to escape to Italy, leaving his wife and children behind in New York.

My decision to fully explore the Sberna case soon followed these revelations.

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