World Gone By Unabridged CD

From New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane, the epic story of Joe Coughlin continues through World War II, as one man struggles to navigate the criminal underworld between Cuba and Ybor City, Florida. Meticulously researched and artfully told, Lehane solidifies his reputation “among the most interesting and accomplished American novelists of any genre or category” (Washington Post).

It’s been ten years since the former crime kingpin Joe Coughlin lost his wife in a rain of gunfire. Now, in World Gone By, Joe lives his life deep in the shadows as a consigliere to the Bartolo Crime Family in Tampa. There he tries to raise his son, Tomás, in peace, traveling between Tampa and his son’s native Cuba during the height of World War II. Ever the operator, Joe moves easily between the black, white, and Cuban underworlds, crossing paths with Tampa’s social elite, US Naval intelligence, the Lansky-Luciano mob, and the mob-financed government of Fulgencio Batista. He has it all–money, power, a beautiful mistress, and anonymity. But then word arrives from a prison inmate that someone has placed a contract on Joe’s life. Trying to ferret out both the killer and the man who hired him, Joe takes the listener on a ride through the growth of the mob during a world at war, a ride that takes us from a masterfully choreographed Ash Wednesday gun battle in the streets of Ybor City to a chilling, heartbreaking climax in a Cuban sugar cane field, during which all the worst truths are uncovered and the wages of a lifetime of sin are finally paid in full.