Live by Night: A Novel (Joe Coughlin Series #1) (Paperback)
October 2012 Indie Next List
“This is a stunning epic of a young Irish gangster coming up in the vicious underworld of the Prohibition era who carries the loaded pedigree of being the son of the Boston police chief. Knocked off his game by his first great love, he falls prey to the Italian mob boss who makes him his own and then punishes him for his success. From Charlestown to Tampa to Havana, this stay-up-all-night page-turner is rich in both history and suspense.”
— Elizabeth Houghton Barden, Big Hat Books, Indianapolis, IN
Staff Reviews
Dennis Lehane is becoming a noir stylist on par with Chandler and Cain. In this novel he gives us a complex character, Joe Coughlin, who sees himself as an outlaw (as opposed to a gangster) in the brutal world of Prohibition Era crime. Driven by ideals he doesn't acknowledge and passions he barely controls, his rise and fall are as idiosyncratic as his motivations. Lehane's evocation of place (Boston and Florida) and time (mid 1920s to 1930s) is sharp, note perfect, and vibrant. First rate. -- Mark's Pick
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).
Dennis Lehane is the author of thirteen novels—including the New York Times bestsellers Live by Night; Moonlight Mile; Gone, Baby, Gone; Mystic River; Shutter Island; and The Given Day—as well as Coronado, a collection of short stories and a play. He grew up in Boston, MA and now lives in California with his family.
— Booklist (starred review)
“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
“Masterful. . . . Lehane has created a mature, quintessentially American story that will appeal to readers of literary and crime fiction alike.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“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