Live by Night
Publisher:
William Morrow, and imprint of HarperCollins Publishers (2012)
Author:
Dennis Lehane
Genre:
Historical Fiction, Crime, Drama, Thriller
Pages:
416
Price:
$16.99
Boston,
1926. Prohibition has given rise to an endless network of
underground distilleries, speakeasies, gangsters, and corrupt cops.
Joe Coughlin, the youngest son of a prominent police captain, has
graduated from a childhood of petty theft to a career in the pay of
the city's most fearsome mobsters. But life on the dark side carries
a heavy price. Beyond money and power, even the threat of prison,
one fate seems more likely for men like Joe: an early death. But
unil that day, he and his friends are determined to live life to the
hilt.
Joes's
dizzying journey up the ladder of organized crime 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 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.
I had
never read a Lehane novel before. I enjoyed the film adaptations of
Mystic River
(2003) and Shutter
Island
(2010). I heard great things about Gone
Baby Gone
(2007) and with two more of his novels being brought to the big
screen, The Drop
starring Tom Hardy and James Gandolfini and this novel in 2016 I
figured it was time to see what kind of literary experience his books
were.
The
settings are great. Each city has it's own quirks and rhythm,
carefully constructed within the framework of the Prohibition era.
The side characters that come with each change in venue were
memorable and always seemed present to actually serve a purpose in
the story. The interplay between criminals and those sworn to uphold
the law seemed spot on for the period. Unfortunately the story those
side characters are there to support is not new, it's a little tired
with a sense of been there done that.
That
'seen it before' feeling could've been offset by a lead character
that pulled the reader through the story through his charm and quick
thinking. Make no mistake, Joe is fast on his feet, often staying a
step ahead of those that seek his downfall. He's not particularly
charming though. His motivation is revenge, and his plan is to exact
that revenge by being successful and driving his competitors out of
business or eliminating them completely. The issue I took with this
motivation is that it doesn't really seem like the Joe we come to
know through the course of the book. The usually pragmatic and
well-reasoned protagonist seems more like the type of man that would
cut his losses and move on, not harbor an eight year grudge.
The
ending wasn't what I expected. Instead of what I thought would be
the logical ending, Lehane writes several more chapters detailing
things that felt rather unnecessary. Because the pace was slowed so
much by these chapters the actual conclusion doesn't have the same
impact that it might have. The ending felt like the motivation that
was lacking through the rest of the book, but at that point the story
is over.
Conclusion:
The flat and at times unbelievable nature of the lead character does
not make this a bad story, it simply keeps it from being a great one.
Joe's machinations are still entertaining, and it's fun to see how
his plans unfold. The idea that the consequences of a violent life
often visit themselves on the deserving and the uninvolved alike is
an important one, it's just thrown at the reader a time or two too
many.
Rating:
7/10
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