On the road with Julia Child: ASIA / SOUTH EAST ASIA
Thriller set in Boston (with some dark and violent corners…)
12th November 2016
Brighton by Michael Harvey, thriller set in Boston.
Brighton in the 1970s (the first part of the book is set in 1975) is a poor working class, largely Irish, district of Boston. It is an area of petty crime – running books, drug dealing, and theft – with overtones of racial violence. Not a particularly pleasant place to exist. Teenager Kevin Pearce has grown up in the area, with his family and friends. Then an event happens which means he has to leave pretty promptly. He heads for New York.
Fast forward to 2002. Kevin has returned to Boston as a investigative journalist with the Boston Globe. He wins the Pulitzer Prize for writing about the wrongful conviction and subsequent death of a man from Brighton (now a significantly gentrified area) for a murder he did not commit. He decides to re-visit the district for the first time in many years. He discovers that the tentacles of his past are out to envelop and entrap him. His teenage friends have grown into mid-level hoodlums, and his younger sister into a major drug dealer. Kevin has a girlfriend, Lisa, who works at the state prosecutor’s office. She requests his help on a murder case. Kevin’s teenage best friend, Bobby, now with a criminal past and present, is a key suspect. Kevin’s loyalties are more than strained…
The books moves to a chilling conclusion.
No doubt that Brighton is a menacing book. It has some very dark and violent corners. And no doubt, in some ways, that Kevin is the alter ego of author, Michael Harvey. Michael grew up in the Brighton of the 1970s, and is clearly extremely familiar with the locale. He is now a successful writer, based in Chicago, and Brighton is his first literary return to his home city. His heart has gone into the book… and it is a great and thought-provoking read.
Tony for the TripFiction team
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