Live by Night

By: Dennis Lehane

Narrated by: Jim Frangione

Length: 14 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

Edgar Award Winner, Best Novel, 2013

Boston, 1926. The ‘20s are roaring. Liquor is flowing, bullets are flying, and one man sets out to make his mark on the world.

Prohibition has given rise to an endless network of underground distilleries, speakeasies, gangsters, and corrupt cops. Joe Coughlin, the youngest son of a prominent Boston police captain, has long since turned his back on his strict and proper upbringing. Now having graduated from a childhood of petty theft to a career in the pay of the city's most fearsome mobsters, Joe enjoys the spoils, thrills, and notoriety of being an outlaw.

Joe embarks on a dizzying journey up the ladder of organized crime that takes him from the flash of Jazz Age Boston to the sensual shimmer of Tampa's Latin Quarter to the sizzling streets of Cuba. At once a sweeping love story and a compelling saga of revenge, it is a spellbinding tour de force of betrayal and redemption, music and murder, that brings fully to life a bygone era when sin was cause for celebration and vice was a national virtue.

©2012 Dennis Lehane (P)2012 HarperCollinsPublishers

Hits All The High Notes!

I have read all of Dennis Lehane's books and this is by far the best one yet! The black sheep son who becomes a seasoned gangster with love and "demon rum" along the way.
Lehane elevates the story by taking it out of Boston and New York City and luring the reader to Tampa and Cuba where the unexpected await. I thought the narrator was very good...

Not all that impressed

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I would not receommend this book to anyone except someone who's already a Dennis Lehane fan. I found it long and not terribly engaging.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

Start over.

What about Jim Frangione’s performance did you like?

The narrator did a good job with the voices.

Did Live by Night inspire you to do anything?

No

Any additional comments?

We got this book to listen to on a long drive from Chicago to Florida, thinking it would be compelling. Not. We were both waiting to get really drawn in, but that really never happened. We finished it only because we'd put so many hours into listening.

Great Story

Would you listen to Live by Night again? Why?

The story, the characters, the period detail

What was one of the most memorable moments of Live by Night?

On the boat with Albert White

What does Jim Frangione bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Voices subtle, but the protagonist was easily identifiable.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The relationship between Joe and his father.

such a ride!

I kept getting surprised! lived,the characters. love the history love story. danger intrigue it's got it all

Recommend

Great read and very well narrated. Highly recommend, but advise listening to the series in order is possible.

I really enjoyed listening to this book!

I had previously read The Given Day and this follow up story was very good. I was hooked from the beginning. One negative for me was the ending, just seemed to end without any plan or thought. All in all I really enjoyed the story and the performance.

Not for me

I have been reading laudatory reviews of Mr. Lehane's work for years, and have enjoyed listening to interviews with him on NPR. And I love gangster movies and noir thrillers. But this was just not for me. This book traverses a queasy tightrope between the sentimental and the horrific, with not much in between. When I wasn't annoyed at the tough-guy codes (concealing deep and lardy emotions), I was dreading the next revolting description of physical torture. At about hour two, I decided I just wasn't enjoying it: not the plot, not the characters and not the writing.

Gangster’s have never appealed to me until Joe Coughlin

I have always been on the side of law and order but Lehane managed to humanize Joe in a way that made this story hold my interest throughout. The building dread and sadness was hard to bear at times but I was too invested in the characters to quit. Excellent narrator too.

My favorite author WAS Don Winslow....

I've found a new drug. I just finished reading all the books worth reading of Don Winslow, my previous fav author. After Live By Night and part way into Mystic River I can already know Dennis Lehanne has taken that top spot as fav author for me, I will most likely read all the MANY MANY books of his that have become movies at LEAST! There are SEVERAL extraordinarily great films based on his novels and after read them all if he's still my #1 fav then I will be reading all the rest

narrator mediocre

The narrator needs to learn the differnce between a Boston and new York accent.