The Given Day

Italian Anarchist, Galleanists, Latvian revolutionaries, Bolsheviks, communists, NAACP, Irish cops and gangsters thrown together into a mix with immigration, racism, corruption, strikes, riot and class warfare as a city goes into meltdown leading up to the Boston police strike of 1919.

Two main characters are Danny Coughlin, Irish and son of one of Boston’s most powerful police captains and Luther Lawrence, poor and black, and on the run from racism and the mob. While Danny wrestles with his conscious over whether to follow his Father’s footsteps or to join the working class and to fight back, Luther has no choice.

If you like your cops all bad and your anarchists all good you probably will have issues with this book. But if, like me, you are a fan of hard boiled American detective fiction from Chandler to The Wire you will find this a great read and will not be able to put it down.