The Given Day by Dennis Lehane

 

The place is Boston, the time the period following the first World War.  Lehane writes a sweeping epic abut the period through following two families and specifically two men.  One is Danny Coughlin, a white Irish beat cop with a father high up in the police administration.  Luther Laurence is an African American man who has left everything he holds dear to come to Boston after he gets involved in a situation that left men dead.

Danny is a natural leader, destined to rise in the police force.  But two things change him.  One is his love for Nora, an immigrant who works for the Coughlins until her past is exposed.  He chooses Nora over his family and is estranged from them.  The other is an assignment where he is sent undercover to penetrate the various groups that are advocating communism and unions.  He is shocked to realize that far from despising these men, he feels more at home with them than with his other friends and coworkers.  The police are woefully underpaid and overworked with no benefits and nothing is set to change.  They start to talk of unionizing and Danny is one of the leaders.

Luther is in Boston to lay low but his character makes him stand out.  He also works for the Coughlins and forms a friendship with Nora and less so, with Danny.  When Nora is forced out, Luther continues to be her friend, her only one.  He left behind a wife he loves dearly who is pregnant with their first child and he wants to get back to them but needs to find a way that won't endanger them as he is wanted by the drug dealing establishment where they are.  He gets involved with the local leaders of the NAACP.  But he is asked to betray them by a policeman who has found out his secret and is holding it over his head.

This is the first novel in the Coughlin series.  Along with the stories of Danny and Luther, there are short chapters that follow the life and career of Babe Ruth and how he sympathizes with the unions as well.  Other characters include J. Edgar Hoover at the start of his career and various individuals from the communist party and early labor leaders.  Readers will learn much about the period as well as having two main characters that they will sympathize with.  This book is recommended for historical fiction readers.