We Were Kings

In 1950s Boston, the best way to survive is keep your head down and your mouth shut. But Cal and Dante prefer to do the right thing, not the sensible one.

When a body is discovered tarred, feathered and shot, it is dismissed as a gangland killing. But Cal O'Brien's cousin, detective Owen Lackey, recognises the murder as the typical retribution for IRA informers.

Owen knows that no one in the tight-knit Boston Irish community will talk. He turns to Cal and Dante for help, sending them into the city's shadowy underbelly. But there's a war on its way - and they're walking straight into the middle of it.

“Brutally realistic...The authors give us one last, lingering look at the good-bad old days - New York Times Book ReviewThis is a bone-crunching, gut-wrenching novel that captures the atmosphere of a city in decay and its inhabitants. It delivers noir fiction like we always want it to be - Kirkus ReviewsO'Malley and Purdy bring postwar Boston to life, making neighbourhoods feel as distinct as separate countries...They have delivered a love-letter to a Boston that's long gone. - Publishers Weekly”

Brutally realistic...The authors give us one last, lingering look at the good-bad old days - New York Times Book Review

This is a bone-crunching, gut-wrenching novel that captures the atmosphere of a city in decay and its inhabitants. It delivers noir fiction like we always want it to be - Kirkus Reviews

O'Malley and Purdy bring postwar Boston to life, making neighbourhoods feel as distinct as separate countries...They have delivered a love-letter to a Boston that's long gone. - Publishers Weekly

Thomas O'Malley was raised in Ireland and England. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and currently teaches on the faculty of creative writing at Dartmouth College. He is the author of the novels In the Province of Saints and This Magnificent Desolation. He lives in the Boston area.

Douglas Graham Purdy grew up in the Boston area. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Boston and worked in Film & Media Studies at MIT. This is his first novel.

In 1950s Boston, the best way to survive is keep your head down and your mouth shut. But Cal and Dante prefer to do the right thing, not the sensible one. When a body is discovered tarred, feathered and shot, it is dismissed as a gangland killing. But Cal O'Brien's cousin, detective Owen Lackey, recognises the murder as the typical retribution for IRA informers.Owen knows that no one in the tight-knit Boston Irish community will talk. He turns to Cal and Dante for help, sending them into the city's shadowy underbelly. But there's a war on its way - and they're walking straight into the middle of it.

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