I recently finished World Gone By. It’s the third book in the Coughlin Trilogy that begins with The Given Day.

I loved The Given Day and Live by Night. This one? I didn’t enjoy it as much as the others. World Gone By is much shorter than the other two books. Things are smaller scale, more like wrapping up the loose ends than telling a full story from beginning to end.

It’s Dennis Lehane, so there’s going to be some good prose. Here’s a couple passages I really liked:

He only saw Montooth’s face in the muzzle flash, it appeared out of the darkness like something disconnected from the man’s body, like a death mask in a fun house, and then the windshield spiderwebbed.

And this, which might spoil Live by Night:

The light took flight from his wife’s eyes. He watched her cross whatever transom led to whatever world or void lay beyond this one. In the final thirty seconds of her life, her eyelids fluttered nine times. And then never again.

And you know what? Fuck it, here’s one more:

[Joe] waited for others to come. He hoped they would. He hoped there was more to this than a dark night, an empty beach, and waves that never quite reached the shore.

If you’re going to read World Gone By, you’re better off starting with either The Given Day or Live by Night. Live by Night is more essential since both it and World Gone By have the same main character.