Given Day, the
This book was recommended to me by a friend who got so absorbed in reading it, that she called in sick to work to finish it. Since it's 702 pages long, I might have appreciated some more concentrated reading time, as well. I liked the book, where the central plot element is the labor dispute between the Boston Police Department and the city in 1919, pretty well, but was not quite as in love with it as my friend.
Danny didn't know a soul who had taken the Prohibition bills seriously, even when they'd made it to the floor of the House. It seemed impossible, with all the other shifts going on in the country's fabric, that these prim, self-righteous "don't dos" had a chance. But one morning the whole country woke up to realize that not only did the idiots have a chance, they had a foothold. Gained while everyone else paid attention to what had seemed more important. p.72
"Have you ever noticed that when they need us, they talk about duty, but when we need them, they talk about budgets?" p.75
"The preliminary suspicions that the molasses tank explosion was a terrorist act have been a boon for us. Simply put, this country is sick of terror."
"But the explosion wasn't a terrorist act."
"The rage remains." Finch chuckled. "No one is more surprised than us. We thought the rush to judgment over the molasses flood had killed us. Quite the opposite. People don't want truth, they want certainty." He shrugged. "Or the illusion of it." p.491