Book Log 2015 #35: Live by Night by Dennis Lehane

Set 7 years after the events of The Given Day, it's an odd sort of sequel as it focuses on Joe Coughlin, the youngest brother of Danny Coughlin, the main character of the first book. He doesn't show up much in that book, so he's a bit of a blank canvas, which allows Lehane to make him the son who goes in the exact opposite direction of his police-oriented household. The book opens with Joe participating in a robbery that may be a set up, forcing him to go on the run and, eventually, to Tampa, where he quickly asserts himself as someone to be reckoned with in the local underworld.

While I was hoping that this book would continue to follow Danny, his path seems a little dull (he winds up working in Hollywood as a writer and sometimes actor in the movies).  One difference I did miss was the historical subplot, which in the first book followed Babe Ruth. I don't know if there would have been an easy way to include one, to be honest.

One interesting way that this book did have some continuity with the first one was in the way Joe is able to work with a multiethnic set of criminals, much in the way Danny cultivated friends and associates who weren't just Irish Catholics. Very forward thinking for the times.

So if you go into this book not expecting it to be a traditional sequel, you should be pretty happy with it. And even if you did, it's certainly the equal to the first book.

(Popsugar Reading Challenge: Read a trilogy. Granted, I read The Given Day a few years ago, but I'm counting it.)