This book, named after a dead-end part of Boston, follows the classic trajectory of two friends whose lives go in radically different directions after a sudden tragic turn of events.

Kevin comes from a deeply unhappy family, trapped in a cycle of violence and misery. His grandmother is the most positive force in his life. She runs a taxi company and has big plans for her only grandson. Bobby has no family, but Kevin’s grandmother takes him in. When the grandmother is brutally murdered both boys go for revenge, but its Bobby who pulls the trigger and who sends Kevin away from Brighton. Kevin became a respected investigative journalist and Bobby, who stayed in Brighton, became a bookie. The murder of an undercover detective brings up the carefully buried past, and the two old friends find themselves caught in a tangled web of lies and dead bodies.

Brighton takes the basic story of two friends whose lives go in different directions and weaves into it a portrait of a decaying town and the erosion of already unstable family bonds; Kevin’s ruthlessly clever sister plays the situation for her own twisted ends. Brighton is reminiscent of the work of Dennis Lehane, although it is much leaner and less elegant, but it is compelling in its bleak intensity.