The Town: A Novel

Praise for nationally bestselling author Chuck Hogan’s
crime fiction blockbuster
The Town

“Hogan excels at creating the over-the-top adrenaline rush of heists, heart-stopping chases, and gun battles… this book finds a place in my list of favorite books ever.”

—The Boston Globe

“First rate.”

—The Washington Post

“A rich narrative of friendship, young love, and mounting suspense. On each season’s fiction list, if you are lucky, there are one or two books that live up to the advance hype.
The Town
is such a book.”

—Stephen King

“[A] moody, resonant thriller.”

—Booklist
(starred review)

“Engaging reading… grittily realistic action sequences.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Chuck Hogan is a superb writer, and his grand novel peopled with believable characters in heart-wrenching scenes that throb with masterful suspense. This is simply great fiction that should not be missed.”

—Ed McBain

“Smart, speedy, and stylish—a literary
Pulp Fiction
.”

—Jeffery Deaver, author of
The Cold Moon

“A fine literary effort… [with] layered characters and nuanced prose.… A story fueled by human relationships.”

—Rocky Mountain News

Praise for
Devils in Exile

“Hogan writes with metronomic precision… This multifaceted author is on a roll.”

—The Florida Times Union

“[A]nother winning performance.”

—Booklist

“This is a compelling portrait of a good man who makes bad choices and in the end must battle his way out of a destructive and deadly life.”

—Publishers Weekly

Praise for
The Killing Moon

“Gripping… thoroughly enjoyable… Hogan’s theme of a small town harboring dark secrets is an addictive one that allows the reader to swallow the book in just one sitting.”

—Richmond Times-Dispatch

“Hogan delivers plenty of excitement.… At his best, Hogan will remind readers of Lee Child and Stephen Hunter.”

—Booklist

“Convincingly and movingly brings alive the dying Massachusetts community of Black Falls.… Strong characters and a memorable setting.”

—Publishers Weekly

“The Boston area has long been fodder for quality crime fiction, including Robert B. Parker, Linda Barnes, Dennis Lehane, and Chris Mooney. Chuck Hogan… cements his bid for inclusion on this literary family tree with a thoughtful, moody thriller about small-town secrets.”

—Baltimore Sun

Praise for
The Blood Artists

“A masterfully suspenseful, character-driven potboiler paced with humor, shamelessly gratuitous destruction, and Grand Guignol gross-outs.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Gripping… so good that readers may need to keep reminding themselves there is no such thing as the Plainville virus.”

—Boston Herald

Praise for
The Standoff

“Absolutely smashing debut thriller… tense, frightening, and all too believable, a certified page-turner.”

—Kirkus Reviews
(starred review)

“Beautifully paced… a heart-tugging subplot… brings an added edge of humanity to this finely crafted and compelling read.”

—Publishers Weekly
(starred review)

“Fast-paced, can’t-put-it-down page-turner… Hogan is so adept at capturing the complexity of character… heart-stopping intensity.”

—San Francisco Chronicle

Also by Chuck Hogan

Devils in Exile

The Killing Moon

The Blood Artists

The Standoff

With Guillermo del Toro

The Strain

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2004045363

ISBN 978-1-4391-9650-2
eISBN-13: 978-1-4516-1027-7

Previously published as
Prince of Thieves

To my mother:
How great the darkness.

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

—Matthew 6:21

Charlestown, Massachusetts’s reputation as a breeding ground for bank and armored-car robbers is authentic. Although faithful to the Town’s geography and its landmarks, this novel all but ignores the great majority of its residents, past and present, who are the same good and true people found most anywhere.

While Charlestown is home to some of the most decent people in the city, it has, like no other neighborhood, a hoodlum subculture that is preoccupied with sticking up banks and armored cars.

—
The Boston Globe,
March 3, 1995

…a community to which more armored-car robbers are traced than any other in the country, according to FBI statistics.

—
The Boston Globe,
March 19, 1995

This self-described Townie spoke… on condition of anonymity, describing what it was like to grow up in Charlestown. “I’m mighty proud of where I come from. It’s ruined my life, literally, but I’m proud.”

—
The Boston Globe,
March 19, 1995

T
HE
T
OWN

First, a toast. Raise a glass. Solemn now:

To the Town.

To Charlestown, our one square mile of brick and cobblestone. Neighborhood of Boston, yet lopped off every map of the city like a bastard cropped out of a happy family portrait.

This is the heart of the “Old Eleventh,” the district that first sent the Kennedy kid to Congress. The one square mile of America that shipped more boys off to World War II than any other. Site of the Battle of Bunker Hill, the blood of revolution sprinkled like holy water over our soil and our souls. Turf and Tribe and Townie Pride—our sacred trinity.

But now look at these outsiders snapping up our brownstones and triple-deckers. Pricing us out of our own mothers’ houses. Yuppies with their Volvos and their Asian cuisine, their disposable incomes and contempt for the church—succeeding where the British army failed, driving us off our land.

But sure, we don’t go away so easy. “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes!”—that was us, remember. This carnation here may be a bit brown at the edges—but see it still pinned to the tweed lapel over my beating Townie heart.

Be a hero now, reach me that jar. We’ll have a hard-boiled egg with this last one, see how she goes down. It’s caps off, gents. Here’s to that towering spike on a hill, the granite battle monument that’ll outlast us all: the biggest feckin’ middle finger in the world, aimed right at good brother Boston and the twenty-first century beyond.

To the Town. Here’s how.