Live by Night

So beautifully written and so sharp in its details and atmosphere that it's no wonder Lehane's books attract filmmakers with such ease * Irish Voice *
Lehane's thrillers mix viscerally violent excitement with a thorough airing of ethical dilemmas * Daily Telegraph *
Lehane is one of the great contemporary American crime writers * Daily Mail *
Dennis Lehane's speciality is the fast-paced gangster thriller that's also a deeply felt novel. His latest, about a Boston criminal, doesn't disappoint on either count... I guarantee that all you'll be able to do is keep on turning the pages. The prose crackles with Chandleresque jokes, the narrative never flags and there's even a genuinely heart-stopping love story. In addition to all that, the book beautifully evokes the entire era of early Thirties Prohibition America * Readers' Digest *
This is a book that should put [Lehane's] name right up there where it belongs, right up there alongside Doctorow and Dreiser * Scotland on Sunday *
This is noir with added value: Lehane is terrific on family ties and at conveying the buzz of a city powered by immigrant labour of often dubious legality * Guardian *
History is merely a backdrop in a story that seeks just to be exciting, sexy and atmospheric. The author's trademark combination of dark deeds, graceful pose and sassy dialogue ensures it succeeds * Sunday Times *
Lehane's tough, muscular prose captures the era well; and his dialogue brings to life the inhabitants of its underworld * Spectator *
This is not just brilliant period crime writing, but brilliant writing full stop * Independent *
The crime writer's crime writer; with a spare, stark edge to his work that lifts it into the truly great clas . . . The gangster world is superbly evoked and the story is as tight and powerful as the trigger on a Thompson sub-machine * Daily Mail *
Sophisticated, literary and barbed enough... it makes this book a sentence-by-sentence pleasure. You are in the hands of an expert. And you'll know it * Scotsman *
Exciting, sexy and atmospheric. Lehane's combination of dark deeds, graceful prose and sassy dialogue ensures it succeeds * Sunday Times *