Live by Night
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| Author | Dennis Lehane |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Crime fiction |
| Publisher | William Morrow and Company |
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Publication date
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January 1, 2012 |
| Media type | Hardcover, audiobook |
| Pages | 401 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 794214253 |
Live by Night is a crime novel by Dennis Lehane that was published in 2012. It won a 2013 Edgar Award for novel of the year.
By 1926, Prohibition in the United States gives rise to an endless network of underground distilleries, speakeasies, gangsters, and corrupt cops. Joe Coughlin, the youngest son of a prominent Boston police captain, defies his proper upbringing by climbing a ladder of organized crime that takes him from Boston to Ybor City, Florida, to Havana, Cuba, where he encounters a dangerous cast of characters who are all fighting for their piece of the American dream.
When the novel begins, Joe is in the employ of one of Boston's most powerful mobsters, Tim Hickey. Joe and two friends knock off a gambling room located behind a speakeasy. Unbeknownst to them, the speakeasy belonged to Albert White, their boss's biggest rival. Emma Gould, a server in the room and White's mistress, catches Joe's attention. They begin an affair.
Coughlin is later sent to Charlestown Penitentiary after a bank robbery goes awry. On the night of his arrest, the car Emma is traveling in crashes into a river and she is presumed dead. Joe comes under the protection of Italian mobster Maso Pescatore while in prison. While Joe and his police captain father had a complicated relationship, Thomas agrees to do Pescatore's bidding to keep Joe safe in prison. The stress of these dealings give Thomas a fatal heart attack.
Upon release, Pescatore sends Joe to Tampa, Florida, to solidify the family's rum-running operation. Joe builds a highly successful business with his henchman, Dion. Still grieving for Emma, he encounters a fiery Cuban expatriate and revolutionary, Graciela Corrales, upon arrival in Tampa and they become an intensely devoted couple. Graciela convinces Joe to mastermind the robbery of a weapons cache from an American warship to aid Fulgencio Batista's overthrow of Cuban strongman Gerardo Machado.
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