Live by Night

Live by Night is a crime novel by American writer Dennis Lehane, published in 2012. It won a 2013 Edgar Award for novel of the year. Plot summary By 1926, 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, defies his proper upbringing by climbing a ladder of organized crime that takes him from Boston to Ybor City, Florida, to Havana, Cuba, where he encounters a dangerous cast of characters who are all fighting for their piece of the American dream. When the novel begins, Joe is in the employ of one of Boston's most powerful mobsters, Tim Hickey. Joe and two friends knock off a gambling room located behind a speakeasy. Unbeknownst to them, the speakeasy belongs to Albert White, Hickey's biggest rival. Emma Gould, a server in the room and White's mistress, catches Joe's attention. They begin an affair. Coughlin is later sent to Charlestown Penitentiary after a bank robbery goes awry. On the night of his arrest, the car Emma is traveling in crashes into a river and she is presumed dead. Joe comes under the protection of Italian mobster Maso Pescatore while in prison. While Joe and his father, Thomas, had a complicated relationship, Thomas agrees to do Pescatore's bidding to keep Joe safe in prison. The stress of these dealings gives Thomas a fatal heart attack.