GIVEN DAY, THE - A NOVEL

In his long-awaited eighth novel, filled with the same suspenseful storytelling that shot Mystic River and Shutter Island to the top of the charts, award-winning author Dennis Lehane again puts all of his literary talents on display. The Great War is ending; the Bolsheviks are overthrowing the Tsar, the Kaiser is running roughshod over Europe, and the Spanish influenza is beginning its deadly rampage. On American shores, communist and socialist movements are swelling in numbers and anarchists are tossing bombs in the street. Harsh labor conditions, barrel-bottom pay, and the disenfranchisement of the working class have branded 'Strike!' onto the national consciousness. Set in an era of unprecedented uncertainty, The Given Day tells the story of those who learn the true consequences of demanding change-of asserting one's worth in a world bent on devaluing one's time and effort; of building common good from astonishing feats of uncommon strength; and of asking not to accept the way of the world, but to remake it.

Boston, 1918. Foot patroller, amateur boxer, and eldest of three brothers Danny Coughlin is Police Department royalty-the son of Captain Thomas Coughlin of Precinct 12. Danny monitors activities in the poor, predominantly Italian neighborhoods of the North End, a prime recruitment area for every major communist and socialist organization. Political dissent is in the air, fresh and intoxicating, and Danny is drawn into the ideological fray as a favor to his father-first as a mole in the policeman's own union, the Boston Social Club, then as an undercover agent infiltrating various radical circles. But Danny's experiences among underpaid workingmen and their forward-thinking leaders quickly turn him to the otherside.