Author: Joe Torrence

Publisher: American European Entertainment Inc

ISBN: 978-1-7770956-0-4

Let's say that one day you find out your great-uncle was Torrio. He helped establish the Chicago Outfit (also identified as the Outfit, the Chicago Mafia, the Chicago Mob, the South Side Gang, or The Organization) in the 1920s that was subsequently succeeded by his protégé Al Capone? How would you react?

Here was a criminal who was dubbed "The Fox," which was credited to his cunning, tact, business ingenuity, and peacemaking skills. The crime group he headed was essentially Italian and was the biggest in Chicago.

This now brings me to Joe Torrence's story The Poison of Money: Inside the Torrio Family, which we are informed is a work of fiction that bases itself on numerous actual events about the life of Johnny Torrio.

The narrative chronicles the life of a criminal who US Treasury official Elmer Irey once depicted as "the biggest gangster in America, the smartest and the best of all the hoodlums. 'Best' referring to talent, not morals."

The tale's principal narrator is a young lad, Joseph, who, after viewing the motion picture "The Godfather," rationalizes "that here was someone who everything a man could want to be." Yet, because of Joseph's stern moral upbringing, he felt deep down that he would never emulate "The Godfather."

One day, Joseph discovers a press clipping in his father's nightstand with the caption "The Mafia at War." This sets off a sequence of visits with Joseph's aunt Tina, his father's eldest sister. Joseph discovers that Torrio turns out to be the brother of aunt Tina's mother and, therefore, the uncle of his father and Tina, or Joseph's great-uncle.

As discussions progressed over some time, Joseph unlocks a ghastly skeleton in his family's closet, which will drive him to mull over how money can be rewarding and destructive all at the same time. To say that the stories recounted about Joseph's great-uncle were intriguing would be an understatement. Tina had an aptitude for transporting Joseph back to those exciting and significantly often scary days. And as the author explains, and readers will no doubt experience, "it became like a virtual reality tour-time travel back through various eras and across several continents."

Although the novel is a bit of a slog, Torrence is a colorful storyteller. Sadly, the yarn jumps all over the place with too much stuffing in of historical data and events of the era. This lack of focus could have been rectified with a good content editor who would have cut out inessential background information. Nonetheless, at times it did feel as if I was sitting with a friend in a bar having a drink while he barked out, "have a got a fascinating story to tell you.!"

On the last page of the novel, we are told that the writer is a talented business executive who some believe inherited the business acumen and street-savvy of his great-uncle. Although, you can say that there is one contrast between these two. Torrence followed the straight path as he inherited and embraced the morals, honesty, and integrity of his own family upbringing.