Love, Prison & Gangsters: New from Dennis Lehane

Live by Night by Dennis Lehane
Reviewed by Spencer

Dennis Lehane’s new novel is, well, awesome! Its action-packed storyline keeps the reader’s heart racing from beginning to end, and with every twist and turn comes more suspense, more adrenaline, more everything you could possibly want in this Scarface meets Road to Perdition gangster novel.

Set in Prohibition era Boston and Florida, Live By Night is the story of Joe Coughlin, a rough and tumble outlaw who goes from petty robber to the king of Florida’s illicit rum trade. He slowly builds his empire while taking out the competition, dodging bullets, consolidating power and protecting a community terrorized by the Ku Klux Klan and rival gangs. There’s love, there’s surviving prison, there’s bribery and corruption, there’s even a failed Hollywood starlet turned fanatic proselyte who almost single-handedly derails Joe’s entire operation through Revival-style fire and brimstone.

What Lehane does exceptionally well is remain historically accurate, or at least plausible. He has done his homework, and really places the reader back in 1920s and ’30s America, lending the sense that you are actually there. It’s the little things that all add up to a great story, like the comment that a Cuban makes to Joe about his optimism for Fulgencio Batista’s new government. Hindsight is 20-20 when we look back on history, but Lehane makes sure – in Joe’s terms – to pistol whip some sense into us, and puts things in perspective based on how people in the 1920s and 30s saw the world. This was a great book, not just for its entertainment value, but also its detail and creativity.

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Signed Copies of Live by Night are available on our shelves and via www.bookpeople.com, while supplies last!