World Gone By is…suspenseful, devious, well-constructed and as filled with ethical questions as it is with gangsters. You've been through a lot by the time you finish it, including a few figurative choruses of "Danny Boy."
The New York Times - Janet Maslin
03/09/2015
Lehane, who has developed into a novelist of seemingly effortless power and command, is missing nothing in his delivery. Few writers can equal his ability to balance dark and light, casual and intense, here and then. More than a sequel, World Gone By seems lit by its predecessor and the events of the past as if through a prism—or maybe a black light. In the process, Joe Coughlin’s story becomes more epic still.” — Chicago Tribune
“Lehane writes convincingly, tensely, tersely, powerfully, about the fatal tensions of daily Mob life without romanticizing it, without judging it. He steers the plot and its characters toward inevitable consequences. Everyone here is bloodied—splattered with either their own or someone else’s blood...This gangster novel is violent, graphic and guiltily compelling.” — USA Today
“Lehane has Elmore Leonard’s ear for dialogue and a masterly touch with description... World Gone By offers a frisson like you get from the best gangster sagas from The Godfather to The Sopranos — entry into a world of complex characters who are operating within their highly risky world. And it serves a plot that drives relentlessly forward without ever feeling forced.” — Miami Herald
“Lehane is shaping a tragedy in World Gone By , along classic lines set in a seamy underbelly. The novel’s plot is as complex as its morality while both are fueled by searing betrayals.” — New York Daily News
“Lehane’s prose is muscular and lean, elegant and brutal, and his action scenes are cause to sit back and exhale when they’re over...World Gone By is a poetic conclusion to an accomplished American crime story.” — Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“A textbook guide on how to end a series .” — Associated Press
“Lehane [is] a novelist of…effortless power.” — Chicago Tribune
“Lehane’s 12th novel is a classic gangster epic.” — Tampa Bay Times
A textbook guide on how to end a series .
Lehane is shaping a tragedy in World Gone By , along classic lines set in a seamy underbelly. The novel’s plot is as complex as its morality while both are fueled by searing betrayals.
Lehane has Elmore Leonard’s ear for dialogue and a masterly touch with description... World Gone By offers a frisson like you get from the best gangster sagas from The Godfather to The Sopranos — entry into a world of complex characters who are operating within their highly risky world. And it serves a plot that drives relentlessly forward without ever feeling forced.
Lehane writes convincingly, tensely, tersely, powerfully, about the fatal tensions of daily Mob life without romanticizing it, without judging it. He steers the plot and its characters toward inevitable consequences. Everyone here is bloodied—splattered with either their own or someone else’s blood...This gangster novel is violent, graphic and guiltily compelling.”
Lehane, who has developed into a novelist of seemingly effortless power and command, is missing nothing in his delivery. Few writers can equal his ability to balance dark and light, casual and intense, here and then. More than a sequel, World Gone By seems lit by its predecessor and the events of the past as if through a prism—or maybe a black light. In the process, Joe Coughlin’s story becomes more epic still.”
Lehane’s 12th novel is a classic gangster epic.
Lehane’s prose is muscular and lean, elegant and brutal, and his action scenes are cause to sit back and exhale when they’re over...World Gone By is a poetic conclusion to an accomplished American crime story.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Lehane, who has developed into a novelist of seemingly effortless power and command, is missing nothing in his delivery. Few writers can equal his ability to balance dark and light, casual and intense, here and then. More than a sequel, World Gone By seems lit by its predecessor and the events of the past as if through a prism—or maybe a black light. In the process, Joe Coughlin’s story becomes more epic still.”
Lehane writes convincingly, tensely, tersely, powerfully, about the fatal tensions of daily Mob life without romanticizing it, without judging it. He steers the plot and its characters toward inevitable consequences. Everyone here is bloodied—splattered with either their own or someone else’s blood...This gangster novel is violent, graphic and guiltily compelling.”
Lehane has Elmore Leonard’s ear for dialogue and a masterly touch with description... World Gone By offers a frisson like you get from the best gangster sagas from The Godfather to The Sopranos — entry into a world of complex characters who are operating within their highly risky world. And it serves a plot that drives relentlessly forward without ever feeling forced.
The novel’s plot is as complex as its morality.
A textbook guide on how to end a series .
03/15/2015
A terrific performance by Jim Frangione makes Lehane’s novel featuring Joe Coughlin (THE GIVEN DAY, 2008; LIVE BY NIGHT, 2012) much more than a simple crime thriller. Characters are a nasty, murderous lot, but Frangione turns them, if not sympathetic, into something more than two-dimensional thugs with an appetite for blood. Coughlin, now a widower and fiercely devoted to his son, learns that someone’s put a hit out on him. Using his connections to Cuba and Tampa’s 1942 gangster hierarchy, he tries to find out who’s behind the contract. Frangione’s delivery of Lehane’s no-nonsense dialogue is as sharp and piercing as machine-gun fire. “Gangster ethics” may seem like an oxymoron, but Frangione turns Coughlin’s uncertainties into a moving exploration of a flawed man’s life. S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
★ 2014-12-17
