APRIL 2015 - AudioFile
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
From the Publisher
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
Associated Press
A textbook guide on how to end a series .
USA Today
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.”
Tampa Bay Times
Lehane’s 12th novel is a classic gangster epic.
New York Daily News
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.
Miami Herald
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.
Chicago Tribune
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.”
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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.
USA Today
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.”
Chicago Tribune
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.”
Miami Herald
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.
New York Daily News
The novel’s plot is as complex as its morality.
Associated Press Staff
A textbook guide on how to end a series .
Library Journal
10/01/2014
Lehane has won Edgar, Anthony, Barry, and Shamus awards for his blockbuster chillers, but this book is BISACed as literary fiction, which says something important about the latest from this vividly smart writer. Here, Lehane harks back to Joe Coughlin, protagonist of his Edgar Award winner, 2012's Live by Night, now serving as consigliere to the Bartolo crime family ten years after enemies murdered his wife. Moving between Tampa and his wife's native Cuba, Coughlin is enjoying himself even as world war rumbles onto the scene again. But of course the past comes knocking. With a 300,000-copy first printing.
APRIL 2015 - AudioFile
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
