Readers of Dennis Lehane’sKenzie/Gennaro detective novels beginning with “A Drink Before the War,” probably think of him as a Boston boy. But Lehane’s ties to Florida - he graduated from and taught creative writing at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg - resulted in a critically praised historical fiction trilogy that evokes Tampa and its vibrant Ybor City at the turn of the twentieth century. Today our new book reviewer Sally Bissell reviews the latest entry in this ambitious series.
“The Given Day,” published in 2003, is the first book in this sweeping historical set in Boston during the turbulent years following the first world war. It’s here that readers meet powerful police captain Joe Coughlin, Sr., whose rise to second in command plays an important role in the follow-up book “Live by Night.”
Informed by their Irish-Catholic roots, the Coughlins worked hard to become accepted members of Boston society. But, as often happens, one son rebels against family strictures. Joe Coughlin, Jr., a two-bit hood, chooses a path that begins with petty crime and escalates to the easy money afforded by Prohibition, gunrunning and bootlegging.
A harrowing stint in Charlestown prison hardens young Joe Coughlin quickly. To stay alive behind bars he forges an uneasy contract with mob boss Maso Pescatore and, upon his release, he’s sent to Tampa, Florida, as Pescatore’s representative in the lucrative rum trade. Smart, ambitious, and cautious, Joe builds successful alliances with power brokers in Tampa and in Cuba, becoming a feared but respected gangster. In fact, little could have persuaded him to leave the life until he meets Graciela Corrales, a Cuban beauty who matches him in brains and courage.
“World Gone By,” due out in March, opens in December 1942. A widower, raising his eight-year-old son Tomas, Joe is now Vice President of Suarez Sugar and renowned in Tampa’s philanthropic circles, raising money for the troops overseas. Any whiff of rumor as to the source of Joe Coughlin’s money is quickly squelched.
Sure, Coughlin made plenty of enemies on his way to the top, but it’s still a shock when the word goes out that a hit has been contracted against him. It speaks to Lehane’s authorial skills that, in spite of all the killing, the cruelty, the ugly nature of a life where no one is above suspicion, readers are still in Joe’s corner. Lehane gives us a nuanced psychological portrait of the criminal mind as it wrestles with good and evil. Though deeply flawed, almost every character in these pages shows glimpses of humanity beneath the surface.
Lehane’s novel provides a fascinating lesson in the history of the cigar and rum industries in Ybor City, and the development of the west coast of Florida. But more than anything, this is a novel about family, loyalty and love. It’s about the sins of the fathers being visited upon the sons and about those sons looking for redemption, a stab at a legitimate life, and a chance to make amends.