Wednesday, March 11, 2015

World Gone By; Dennis Lehane

World Gone By; Dennis Lehane
William Morrow - 2015

World Gone By is the final book of a trilogy that began with The Given Day (2008), followed by Live By Night (2012).

Now in World Gone By, the story picks up some 10 years later with protagonist, Joe Coughlin, who once held a top level spot with the Bartolo crime family, is now a "consigliere" to a Tampa crime boss. He is trying to stay out of the limelight and away from violence for the sake of his young son, Tomas. When Tomas was just 2, Joe's Cuban wife was killed in the wake of a mob related attack. Tomas is a quiet, gentle boy and Joe is trying to protect him.

When a woman in prison for murdering her husband get's a guard to summon Joe, telling him she has some important information for him, he's curious. It seems she has heard from a good source that Joe is the mob's next target. Joe is not sure what to think.

This is a story that has a great hook early on and held my interest. However, there are several different threads running through. Lots of characters, and locales of Tampa and Cuba, plus back stories to keep track of. It's mostly a dark story, extremely well written with plenty of action, politics, corruption,violence, scandal and sex. There was a surprising wrap up as well.

I wouldn't recommend reading this as a stand alone, as you'd be missing the back stories about Joe's dad and brother as Boston cops when Joe was just a child, as well as Joe's days at the top of his game as a crime Boss. Overall a busy but enjoyable read. Recommend for readers who enjoy historical crime fiction.


4/5 stars
(review copy)

8 comments:

  1. I've never read a book by him yet! One of these days when I need a new series...

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  2. I haven't read the previous two books but am going to try to tackle this one as a stand alone and hope it will still be a fun read. The Cuba angle intrigues me.

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  3. I haven't read the previous two books but am going to try to tackle this one as a stand alone and hope it will still be a fun read. The Cuba angle intrigues me.

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  4. Crud, I didn't realize this is part of a trilogy. Sigh.

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  5. While I've seen Mystic River which I think was based on his book I haven't read any Lehane. I'll have to go find The Given Day.

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  6. I still haven't read the first two, so thanks for mentioning that it's the third! The publishers like to keep that quiet sometimes!

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  7. Thanks for sharing some thoughts about this series, Diane! It does sound as if it works best read as a series.

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