Brighton: A Novel

Brighton starts off in the 70’s with a crime being committed against a family member of Kevin Pearce, who at that time is fifteen. Kevin decides to take things into his own hands and get his own justice. He would have succeeded had his friend Bobby intervened and done it for him. Bobby gets Kevin out of town and Kevin goes on to make a name for himself as an investigative journalist. Almost thirty years later, some more people get murdered, even using the same gun as in their crime and it looks like Bobby is the killer, so Kevin heads home to save his friend and their secrets.

I can’t think of a better way to describe this book than a gritty look at what life was like on the tougher side of Boston. Nobody’s life was easy in this book, you start to feel like they had no other choice than to go down the path that was in front of them, everyone a victim of their past and their environment. Even though Kevin is the main character, I was drawn more to the complex Bobby. Each character was well written though and Michael Harvey definitely knows what he’s doing.