Dennis Lehane

Related Content

• Valentine's Day at Sip
  January 18, 2012
• Top 5 Best Beaches in Seattle for Brown Baggin' it
  August 3, 2011
• Seattle Weekly Wins 15 Society of Professional Journalists Awards
  May 23, 2011
• Seattle's Fattest Potato Dishes
  June 29, 2011
• The Sound of Music Sing-Along
  December 29, 2010

More About

• Dennis Lehane
• Luther Laurence
• Danny Coughlin
• Laura Onstot
• Bolshevik Party

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Events Newsletter: What's happening in town? From underground club nights to the biggest outdoor festivals, our top picks for the week's best events will always keep you in on the action.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

Race, unions, the Spanish flu, God, and baseball—these are not the staples one associates with the acclaimed crime novels of Dennis Lehane (Mystic River; Gone, Baby, Gone). In The Given Day(Morrow, $27.95), he takes those ingredients and adds a dash of Boston political intrigue to the mix. His tale begins in 1918, with the Great War looming in Europe and anarchists lurking at home. Officer Danny Coughlin walks the cobbled streets to protect the city’s Brahmins, then accepts an assignment to infiltrate the Bolsheviks plotting in coffee shops and moldy basements. To his surprise, he finds himself sympathetic to the union organizers (who shout their slogans from actual soap boxes). Parallel to this labor struggle is a nascent civil-rights movement, and Lehane gives us a second hero, Luther Laurence, a fugitive black man and athlete who, in the novel’s opening chapter, encounters the great Bambino. The Given Dayis a Lehane novel, which means dark (especially given the historical setting), but somehow he avoids depressing. His plot is intricate without demanding excessive suspension of disbelief. His characters are at once complicated, elegant, and despicable. Seattle Mystery Bookshop, 117 Cherry St., 587-5737, www.seattlemystery.com. Free. Noon. Also: Third Place Books, 17171 Bothell Way N.E., 366-3333, www.thirdplacebooks.com. 7 p.m. LAURA ONSTOT
Wed., Oct. 8, 12 & 7 p.m., 2008