The Given Day

This book although long, held my attention and I could almost not put it down. I see this as a movie but much will have to be shortened. Great characters, wonderful story line and an intertwining of history. Get this book, sit down and enjoy.

Lehane is a wonderful writer. Mystic River was his opus magnus, and his Boston hard-boileds are quite good. This novel is his attempt to break out into a larger literary world. Set in the period around World War I, Lehane offers us a sense of the times, and they are not pretty. The two primary chara......more

Coughlin book No. 1. After being flabbergasted by how great the last book of this trilogy was, I returned back in time to read the story of the Coughlin family (Boston police centred) in the years after the First World War ended, and not only was I in awe of the story, characters and world building,......more

The size of this novel equates to the size of this story: Mammoth. Huge. Epic. Lehane sweeps us into the world at the end of ww1 in Boston. It's a time of unrest, social uprising, anarchists, revolutionaries, immigrants, plagues and violence. It's the story of 2 men: One white - an Irish cop; one bl......more

Imagine an America where the wealthy people in power rule a system in which they are free to reap enormous profits through unregulated businesses while every privilege that society can offer is given to them. These titans of capitalism underpay their employees for hard labor that lasts at least twel......more