Rated  of 5
by Lauren C. (Los Angeles, CA)
All Historical Fiction, Not a Thriller
I have read other books by Dennis Lehane and have enjoyed them very much, but those have been his modern day detective stories. I knew that this book was going to take place during Prohibition, and assumed that Lehane would find a way to do the same sort of thriller in a different backdrop.
Instead this was a pretty standard run-of-the-mill "my adventures as a gangster" story. It has the 1920s setting-- Prohibition, racial tensions in Boston and elsewhere, Ku Klux Klan, anarchists. However, it is a story that you've read and seen lots of times before, and it lacks any of the edginess that you might see on "Boardwalk Empire" or read/see in the "Godfather".
Lehane knows how to write so it wasn't a difficult read, but I'll be sticking to his modern day crime stories from now on. While I do read historical novels from time to time, I prefer ones that have a unique twist or are a bit edgier. If you like historical noves in general you would probably enjoy this more than I did.
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