By 1926, Prohibition has given rise to an endless network of underground distilleries, speakeasies, gangsters, and corrupt cops. Joe Coughlin, the youngest son of a prominent Boston Police captain, defies his proper upbringing and his father’s strict law-and-order orthodoxy. Graduating from a childhood of petty theft to a career in the pay of the city’s most fearsome mobsters, Joe enjoys the riches, thrills, and notoriety of being an outlaw.

But life on the dark side carries a heavy price. In a time when ruthless men of ambition armed with cash, illegal booze, and guns battle for control, no one—neither family or friends, enemies or lovers—can be trusted. For men like Joe, beyond the money and power, even the threat of prison, one fate seems more likely than all others: an early death.

Joe embarks on a dizzying journey up the ladder of organized crime that takes him from the razzle-dazzle of Jazz Age Boston to the sensual