Thom's Revenge

Thom Sweeney is a brilliant and ambitious Boston Latin School senior. Driven by memories of his dead mother’s encouragement and advice he is determined to go to Harvard. But he is poor and can’t imagine where he’ll get the tuition money until rich students in his class offer to pay him for his answers to tests. When the scheme is discovered by the head master, the rich students blame Thom for the idea and he gets thrown out of school. Bitter and angry, he swears he’ll get even with the rich kids but only manages to get himself arrested. The judge offers him a suspended sentence if he can get a job within a month. It’s 1934, the depth of the Great Depression, and the only job he can find is working as a newsboy on a busy corner in Boston. He takes the job and soon finds that the news stand also takes bets on the numbers racket run by a sadistic mobster. Thom makes the mistake of flirting with the mobster’s girlfriend and is punished by the mobster. Enraged, Thom swears to get revenge. He applies his energy and thought to boosting newspaper sales and increasing the bets on the numbers. He manages to become Boston’s leading bookie. Along the way, he devises a plan to divert a large portion of the bets into his own pocket. Cocky and sure of himself, he doubles his efforts to steal the mobster’s exotic girlfriend. The sadistic mobster discovers that Thom is the bastard son of Lucky Luciano, the mob’s boss of bosses. A fact that Thom is unaware of. The mobster plans to use Thom to lure Lucky Luciano into a trap where he intends to kill Lucky and take over the Boss of Bosses position for himself. At the same time, the newly formed FBI has their eye on Thom’s bookie operation. Thom is now a marked man and must figure a way out of the treacherous mess or die trying.