Diane of Star Hollow

Summary

Star Hollow, a hamlet stitched from soot and gaslight, awakens beneath the iron gaze of Patrick Scott—state constabulary colossus, trench-coat chiaroscuro incarnate—who carries, like a concealed stiletto, an aching tenderness for Diane Orsini, porcelain heiress to a marble fortune tainted by rumor. Her sire, the opulent Italian émigré Signor Orsini, is whispered to be the many-tentacled capo of the Black Hand, that clandestine fraternity whose calling-card is fear rendered in gunpowder ink. Dispatched to unspool the labyrinthine threads of extortion and blood-oathed omertà, Scott stalks shadowed alleyways, ledger-clutching bookkeepers, and candle-lit dockside chapels, each footstep tightening the garrote around his own heart: capture the patriarch, keep the daughter. The investigation detonates into a crescendo of ambushes—a train-yard fusillade, a church-belfry siege—until the final reckoning erupts inside a derelict foundry where muzzle-flash paints Guernica-like murals on corrugated iron. Pat staggers out perforated yet defiant; Orsini’s loyal phalanx lies strewn like discarded chessmen. In the hush that follows, Diane’s filial devotion calcifies into ash; she turns her gaze from sire to savior. Ruined, exposed, and hearing the hounds of justice bay across the Hudson, Orsini places a jeweled revolver to his temple and erases his own epilogue, leaving only the echo of a daughter’s sob and the promise of dawn on the river.

Synopsis

Patrick Scott, local chief of state constabulary, loves Diane Orsini, whose father, a rich Italian, is suspected of being head of the Black Hand. Scott is detailed to obtain evidence and capture the gang and its leader. This investigation results in several tense situations--the last being an all-out gun fight in which Pat is injured and Orsini's henchmen are killed. Pat later recovers both his health and Diane, and Orsini, having incurred his daughter's animosity and seen his empire destroyed, commits suicide.