Live by Night - (Joe Coughlin) by Dennis Lehane (Paperback)

About the Book

"Joe Coughlin, the youngest son of a prominent Boston police captain, has long since turned his back on his strict and proper upbringing, and enjoys the spoils, thrills, and notoriety of being an outlaw. But life on the dark side carries a heavy price, and one fate seems most likely for men like Joe: an early death. Until that day, he and his friends are determined to live life to the hilt. Joe embarks on a dizzying journey up the ladder of organized crime that takes him from the flash of Jazz Age Boston to the sensual shimmer of Tampa's Latin Quarter to the sizzling streets of Cuba. Live by Night is a riveting epic layered with a diverse cast of loyal friends and callous enemies, tough rumrunners and sultry femmes fatales, Bible-quoting evangelists and cruel Klansmen, all battling for survival and their piece of the American dream. At once a sweeping love story and a compelling saga of revenge, it is a spellbinding tour de force that brings fully to life a bygone era when sin was cause for celebration and vice was a national virtue."--Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

"A meticulously crafted portrait of our violent national past."--Washington Post Book World

Now
available with a contemporary look, New York Times bestselling author
Dennis Lehane's epic, unflinching tale of Prohibition, the Roaring Twenties,
and one man's rise from Boston petty thief to the Gulf Coast's most successful
rum runner.
Joe Coughlin, the youngest son of a prominent
Boston police captain, has long since turned his back on his strict and proper
upbringing, and enjoys the spoils, thrills, and notoriety of being an outlaw.
But life on the dark side carries a heavy price, and one fate seems most likely
for men like Joe: an early death. Until that day, he and his friends are
determined to live life to the hilt.

Joe
embarks on a dizzying journey up the ladder of organized crime that takes him
from the flash of Jazz Age Boston to the sensual shimmer of Tampa's Latin
Quarter to the sizzling streets of Cuba. Live
by Night is a riveting epic
layered with a diverse cast of loyal friends and callous enemies, tough
rumrunners and sultry femmes fatales, Bible-quoting evangelists and cruel
Klansmen, all battling for survival and their piece of the American dream. At
once a sweeping love story and a compelling saga of revenge, it is a
spellbinding tour de force that brings fully to life a bygone era when sin was
cause for celebration and vice was a national virtue.

From the Back Cover

From New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane comes this epic, unflinching tale of the making and unmaking of a gangster in the Prohibition Era of the Roaring Twenties--now a Warner Bros. movie starring Ben Affleck, Elle Fanning, Zoe Saldana, and Sienna Miller.

Meticulously researched and artfully told, Live by Night is the riveting story of one man's rise from Boston petty thief to the Gulf Coast's most successful rum runner, and it proves again that the accolades New York Times bestseller Lehane consistently receives are well deserved. He is indeed, "a master" (Philadelphia Inquirer) whose "true literary forefathers include John Steinbeck as well as Raymond Chandler" (Baltimore Sun). And, "Boy, does he know how to write" (Elmore Leonard).

Review Quotes

"LIVE BY NIGHT is, first and foremost, a great story. But it is also proof positive that Lehane's 2008 novel, The Given Day, was no fluke--more than just a crime writer, Lehane is an author who works on a higher literary plane. . . . LIVE BY NIGHT is a morality tale in which, as one character notes, "No one's good, no one's bad." Except for the author, who once again shows just how good he is." - Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Lehane's novel carves its own unique place in the Prohibition landscape. . . . This is an utterly magnetic novel on every level, a reimagining of the great themes of popular fiction--crime, family, passion, betrayal--set against an exquisitely rendered historical backdrop." - Booklist (starred review)
"LIVE BY NIGHT belongs somewhere in a realm of Mario Puzo meets the Bible. It's a morality tale, but in keeping with the best of those, it's complex and layered and damnably entertaining, too." - New York Daily News
"LIVE BY NIGHT is Crime Noir 101, as taught by the best of its current practitioners. . . . Yet [Lehane's] idea of plain old crime is sophisticated, literary and barbed enough that it makes this book a sentence-by-sentence pleasure. You are in the hands of an expert. And you'll know it." - Janet Maslin, New York Times
"LIVE BY NIGHT is Crime Noir 101, as taught by the best of its current practitioners. . . . A sentence-by-sentence pleasure. You are in the hands of an expert. And you'll know it." - Janet Maslin, New York Times
"LIVE BY NIGHT transcends the familiar and assumes an unimpeachable reality of its own. . . . [A] meticulously crafted portrait of our violent national past." - Washington Post Book World
"Exquisitely plotted. . . . LIVE BY NIGHT is a masterful outing by an author known for superior storytelling." - South Florida Sun Sentinel
"Masterful. . . . Lehane has created a mature, quintessentially American story that will appeal to readers of literary and crime fiction alike." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Combining period detail from the Prohibition era with the depth of character and twists of plot that have won him such a devoted readership. . . . The novel builds to a powerful series of climaxes, following betrayal upon betrayal, which will satisfy Lehane's fans and deserves to extend his readership as well. Power, lust and moral ambiguity combine for an all-American explosion of fictional fireworks." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)