The Mafia Emblem

Ben Cartwright finds the brutally murdered body of his friend and business partner Toni Cimbrone in their office. Beside the body is a small metal emblem with the picture of a grotesque wolf enamelled on it.

The next morning he is told that the Cimbrone family is going to exclude him from the business. He flies to Naples to confront them and meets a glamorous American, Donna Carter, on the plane.

Arriving in Italy, he finds himself embroiled in the struggle between the Cimbroni and their enemies, the Vitelli. Toni’s young sister Francesca is now almost the last of her family and she and Ben have to battle against the powerful Vitelli, helped sometimes by Donna.

From Francesca’s grandfather they learn about the legend of the Wolf of Hades (the symbol on the emblem) and its occasional emergence from hell to claim the souls of its victims.

Ben has to confront the godfather of the Vitelli’s in his eyrie-like stronghold where he discovers the Wolf of Hades is still waiting to consume its latest victims. The story reaches its climax as Ben and Francesca flee for their lives into the crater of a volcano on the point of eruption.