World Gone By

Set during the Second World War in Tampa and Cuba, Dennis Lehane's crime novel returns to Joe Coughlin ten years after the events of Live by Night. His enemies killed his wife and wrecked his empire; now the former kingpin works as consigliere to the crime family run by his old partner, Dion Bartolo, traveling between Tampa and Cuba, his late wife's homeland. In public he is a respectable businessman raising his son, Tomás, alone and devotedly, at ease with Tampa society, the Lansky-Luciano mob, Naval intelligence and Batista's regime. Then a convicted murderer tells him a hit has been ordered on him, and Joe spends the next two weeks trying to learn why while staying alive.

Stephen King ranked it the finest gangster novel since The Godfather and praised its story and its shattering conclusion.