The Given Day, Dennis Lehane, 2009

Speaking of big, sweeping books, Lehane writes a real winner, combining the Boston policemen’s strike, the Great Molasses Flood, Babe Ruth’s trade to the Yankees, Calvin Coolidge, J. Edgar Hoover, Boston’s Irish, and an African-American named Luther Laurence who turns up in enough strange spots and ways to tie the whole big wonderful story together.