Joe Coughlin Books In Order

Publication Order of Coughlin Books

Recommendations

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Dennis Lehane writes the “Joe Coughlin” trilogy of historical gangster novels.

Ben Affleck wrote, directed, produced, and starred in an adaptation of “Live By Night” in 2016.

The novel was nominated for a 2013 Lefty Award for Best Historical Mystery Novel and a 2013 Barry Award for Best Novel. It won the 2013 Edgar Award for Best Novel.

“The Given Day” is the first novel in the “Joe Coughlin” series and was released in 2006. Set at the end of World War I in Boston, this novel captures the social and political unrest of a nation caught at the crossroads between future and past.

This tells the story of two families (one white and one black) swept up in this maelstrom of ward bosses and immigrants, anarchists and revolutionaries, Brahmins and ordinary citizens, all engaged in this battle for power and survival.

Danny Coughlin (a beat cop) is the son of one of the most beloved and powerful police captains in the city, and Danny joins up with a burgeoning union movement and the hunt for some violent radicals.

Luther Laurence is on the run after this deadly confrontation with some crime boss in Tulsa, is working for the Coughlin family and attempts desperately to find his way back home to his pregnant wife.

Here are also some of the most influential figures of the entire era: Eugene O’Neill, Babe Ruth, Jack Reed, W. E. B. Dubois, Mitchell Palmer, Calvin Coolidge, and John Hoover.

Coursing through some of the pivotal events of the whole period, including the Spanish Influenza pandemic, and culminating in the Boston Police Strike of 1919, this book explores much of the irrepressible exuberance and crippling violence of a country at war with, and in the thrall of, itself. While Luther, Danny, and those all around them struggle to better define themselves in increasingly turbulent times, they slowly find family in each other and ride together a rising storm of deprivation, hardship, and hope that’ll change each of their lives.

This is an impassioned, huge, and intensively researched novel which brings history alive by grounding the present with the lessons of the past. The time and period give Dennis the scope to tell this uniquely American story, one that’s grounded in our history yet rings with issues which concern us still, nearly a century later. The novel is a fiery and majestic epic which moves Dennis well beyond the confines of the crime genre.

“Live By Night” is the second novel in the “Joe Coughlin” series and was released in 2012. This is an epic and riveting layered tale with such a diverse cast of callous enemies and loyal friends, tough rum runners and sultry femme fatales, Bible quoting evangelists and cruel Klansmen, who all battle for their survival and their piece of the American dream.

1926 in Boston. The ‘20s have been roaring. The liquor’s flowing, bullets are flying, and a single man sets off to leave his mark on the world.

Prohibition has given rise to a never-ending network of underground distilleries, gangsters, speakeasies, and corrupt cops. Joe, a prominent Boston police captain’s youngest son, has long since turned his back on his proper and strict upbringing. Now having graduated from his childhood of petty theft to a career in the employ of the city’s most fearsome mobsters, he enjoys the thrills, spoils, and notoriety of being an outlaw.

However life on the dark side comes with a dark price. During a time when ruthless men of ambition, who are armed with illegal booze, cash, and guns, fight for control, nobody (neither friend or family, lover nor enemy) can be trusted. Beyond power and money, even the threat of going to prison, one fate appears to be most likely for men like Joe: an early grave. However until that day comes, he and his buddies are determined to live life to the hilt.

Joe goes on this dizzying journey clear up the ladder of organized crime which takes him from the flash of Jazz Age Boston all the way to the sensual shimmer of Tampa’s Latin Quarter and then to the sizzling streets of Cuba.

At once a sweeping love story and a compelling saga of revenge, this is a spellbinding tour de force of redemption and betrayal, murder and music, which brings totally to life this bygone era when sin was a cause for celebration and vice was actually a national virtue.

“World Gone By” is the third novel in the “Joe Coughlin” series and was released in 2015. A morally and psychologically complex novel of crime, blood, passion, and vengeance, set in Ybor City, Florida and Cuba, during World War II, where Joe has to face the cost of his criminal past and present.

It’s been 10 years since Joe’s enemies murdered his wife and destroyed his entire empire, and so much has changed. Prohibition has died, the world’s at war yet again, and Tomas (Joe’s son) is growing up. Now, this former crime kingpin works as a consigliore to the Bartolo crime family, making the trip between Tampa and his wife’s homeland of Cuba.

A master that moves in and out of the black, white, and Cuban underworlds, Joe mixes effortlessly with US Naval intelligence, Tampa’s social elite, the Lansky-Luciano mob and the mob financed government of Fulgenico Batista. He’s got everything: a beautiful mistress, money, power, and anonymity.

However success can’t protect him from the dark truth of his past, and ultimately, the wages of a lifetime of sin that’ll finally get paid in full.

Dennis vividly recreates the rise of the mob while the world was at war, from a masterfully choreographed Ash Wednesday gunfight in the streets of Ybor City to this heartbreaking and chilling climax in a Cuban sugar cane field. Told with skill and verve, this is a fantastic work of historical fiction.

Fans of the book said this was well constructed, suspenseful, and devious, while being full of ethical questions. Dennis delivers a classic gangster epic, a darkly violent story enriched by a sharp insight into American life and Dennis’ beautifully crafted prose.