Ray Boy Calabrese is released from prison 16 years after his actions led to the death of a young man. The victims brother, Conway DInnocenzio, is a 29-year-old Brooklynite wasting away at a local Rite Aid, stuck in the past and still howling for Ray Boys blood. When the chips are down and the gun is drawn, Conway finds that he doesnt have murder in him. Thus begins a spiral of self-loathing and soul-searching into which he is joined by Alessandra, a failed actress caring for her widowed father, and Eugene, Ray Boys hellbound nephew. Ray Boy Calabrese is back in Gravesend: some people worship him, some want him dead . . . but none more so than the ex-con himself.
Boyles writing is raw, poetic, unflinching, nostalgic, and perverse. Urgency inhabits his pages, and the characters live on weeks after you put the book down. Gravesend is a novel read in a day, and then again, slowly - LA Review of Books
Like all the best crime writers, Boyle is both a masterful storyteller and a powerful stylist...He has a sense of humour and a sense of place. Most of all, though, he has the true novelists true feeling for his characters - North Dakota Quarterly
Gravesend is a taut exploration of the ways we hurt and save (or try to save) one another. With unforgettable characters, a fist for a plot, and a deeply evocative setting, Boyle navigates alleys and streets with the best of them, Lehane, Price, and Pelecanos - Tom Franklin, NYT bestselling author of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter and winner of the LA Times Book Prize
