This was BLEAK. If Shakespeare wrote a grand tragedy and set it in contemporary Brooklyn, this might be it. Stunningly crafted and not for the faint of heart.

The year is 1986, and the place is Gravesend, Brooklyn. Risa, a devout and sincere young mother, is married to Sav, a bad boy and renowned local scoundrel. She’d been warned it would all end in tears, that Sav wasn’t the kind of guy she should hitch her wagon to. But he was handsome, funny, and just a little dangerous—she couldn’t help herself. She’d found him irresistible.

The area where they live, with their eight-month-old son Fabrizio (Fab), is largely populated by people of Italian heritage. Here, everybody knows everybody, and everyone knows everyone else’s business, too. Then, one night, everything kicks off between Risa and Sav. It’s a night that really does end in tears. There’s a death—a violent one. The repercussions will clearly be huge: everyone will know, charges will be brought, jail time will be served. Or then again, perhaps not.

This is a story about a close-knit group of people—Risa, her younger sister Giulia, and Chooch, a close friend of Sav’s—who decide they have no choice but to keep the death a secret. We track their lives over a period of eighteen years. Short periods of time are scrutinized intensely, punctuated by long stretches where we learn nothing. Is it possible for such a dark secret to remain hidden from prying eyes all this time? There are certainly those who have suspicions, but suspicions are all they have.
As time passes, the focus of the narrative shifts. Sometimes it centers on the three central characters (four as Fab grows into adulthood). At other times, it turns to others connected to this small group: friends and relatives of Sav, people with some skin in the game.

The gaps in the timeline created by the author are holes that are not filled. We don’t know what happens during those periods—we’re not told. We can only observe the actions and discussions in the here and now, piecing together what we might have missed. Initially frustrating, it soon becomes apparent that this clever construction allows the tale to renew itself, with new elements coming into play. Each section contains a twist—a truly stunning surprise. The story moves forward, but now nudged in a subtly different direction.

The overall mood is certainly melancholy—one might even say gloomy. There’s a distinct lack of good news here. Yet, the changes brought by time and circumstance make it anything but a dispiriting read. In fact, I believe it to be quite the opposite. It’s a surprising and, at times, thrilling ride through a large chunk of these people’s lives—lives lived in a near-constant state of pretense, with the fear of discovery always lurking in the background.

How you feel about the main protagonists might change along the way—it did for me. So, too, might the way you hope the endgame plays out. It’s a shocking, surprising, and thought-provoking tale that will likely stay with readers long after they turn the final page.

Thanks for the ARC Soho Crime and NetGalley!! I'm a big fan of a bunch of Soho Crime books, and you almost never see the ARCs on here, so I was excited to get this one. It did not disappoint. What an amazing story. Every character felt so real, as well as the neighborhood, and getting to live with them through the three different time periods watching the evolution of it all was amazing. It's hard to right these things without spoilers, but the ending, while not being what I was hoping for, really tied everything together, showing the echos of generational trauma in the neighborhood. This has set a high bar for 2025 books. I will be reading more by William Boyle!

The consequences of an accidental murder kept a secret are at the heart of Saint of the Narrows Street, the new novel by William Boyle.

Risa Franzone, mother of eight month old Fabrizio, accidentally kills her abusive husband Saverio when he attacked her sister Giulia in a drunken rage.. Torn over what to do, they contact their friend Chooch, and rather than report a killing done in self defense, a decision is made to bury the body in upstate New York on Chooch’s family’s property., and concoct a story about Sav’s disappearance. The reader then follows the course of events over the next eighteen years, and how the reverberations of this secret affect the lives of Risa, Giulia, Chooch, and especially Fab, who desperately wants to find his supposedly missing Dad.

The writing is top notch. Despite this book being more of a character driven narrative, I could not tear myself away. Not only are all the main characters well developed, the author brilliantly brings the Gravesend section to life. My only complaint is that some of the plot developments in the middle sections seem a bit forced. While this didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book, it did knock a star off my rating.

My thanks to the publisher and to Netgalley for providing an ARC of the book.

Thank you NetGalley,Soho publishers and author,Wm.Boyle,for the opportunity to read the ebook,Saint of the Narrows Street. This is one of the better novels I’ve read recently.The initial outline of this story did not appeal to me but it seemed to get good reviews from most others that had read it. Once I started reading,I could not put it down!
Story takes place in the 1980’s and for the following 18 years. It takes place in an Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn,N.Y.,where we’re introduced to a group of interesting characters,barflys,tough guys who control neighborhood gambling back rooms or clubs,church going/religious attendees with Catholic school nuns and priests.The main three characters are two sisters and their male neighbor who are the best of friends.The novel concerns them and ,an accidental murder and the cover up of it over the 18 year period that affects one of the sisters and her new born son.
Publication date,February 04,2025

Boyle sets his novel back to the familiar streets of Brooklyn NY. The Gravesend neighborhood where Italians have settled. Here the working class are challenged daily with life and crime. When a married women with a baby has a gun pointed at her by her lousy husband it sets off a chain of events unimaginable at the time.

Boyle nails the vibe, the scenes and the moods in this novel. He is fantastic and all should be reading his novel. Great, great stuff.

BTW: when do the Irish get there turn with Boyle?

In his upcoming novel, Saint of the Narrows Street (2025), Boyle chronicles life in 1980’s Brooklyn, a project that has continued through a number of his novels, including Gravesend (2013), the Lonely Witness (2018), A Friend is a Gift You Give Yourself (2019), City of Margins (2020), Shoot the Moonlight Out (2021), each offering new characters caught up in a world of trouble.

This particular novel is not a mystery as the crime at issue – if indeed it is a crime – occurs rather quickly and the focus is on the decisions made thereafter to cover up what happened and bury the body and the guilt the survivors feel for decades following. Indeed, as the story opens, we learn that the two sisters, 28-year-old new mother Risa and her younger sister 24-year-old Giula, are sort of in opposite worlds. Giulia is still “full of life, like the world can break her and she’ll bounce back no problem.” Risa, in contrast, is sweating in the kitchen with clammy hands and dealing with a screaming infant (Fab) and a horribly abusive marriage with Sav that she knew from the get-go was the wrong move, but went with it anyway. Sav had been revealed as a bad man as soon as they married, now he is a drunk who runs around openly with a neighborhood floozy Sandra, and for fun pointed a gun at Risa and Fab, laughing as he pulled the trigger on an empty chamber. The trouble explodes though when he comes back later that evening, drunk, sloppy, boasting that he would take off with Sandra, and when one things leads to another, has Giulia by the throat and Risa reacts quickly clocking Sav with a heavy cast-iron pan that was still warm.

It is then that the story turns from just another abused housewife story to a crime fiction tale as Risa quickly decides that cannot afford to pay the price she might have to if she calls the ambulance and the authorities. With a newborn infant, she cannot imagine a jail cell for the rest of her life and Fab without a mother. Is this destiny pre-ordained or a series of decisions she made that led up to this day? What do the two women do now? Do they dig a hole in the yard? Do they run for the hills with the infant in tow? Do they drink wine as Sav’s life blood pours out on the floor, pondering what to do? Do they simply brazen it out and claim innocently Sav disappeared into the mist and they don’t know where he went?

This dilemma sets the stage for the rest of the novel and, indeed, the rest of their lives. They feel some guilt because they are not sue how much of this was purposeful and intentional and how much was something Sav deserved because of who he was and how he treated Risa. The decisions they make on this fateful night envelope them forever and particularly when there are whispers in the neighborhood about what happened and whether something was intended and when Fab eventually asks questions that cannot be answered or can be answered but only with answers that no one can possibly admit and live with.

Saint of the Narrows Street is a powerfully written character study.

Thank you to Net Galley and Soho Press for an early copy of Saint of the Narrows Street by William Boyle

The title of this novel Saint of the Narrows Street represents an ironic thought process as readers will wonder throughout the story where can any saint be found. This Italian-American saga set in Brooklyn on a narrow stretch of a neighborhood teems with small-time mobsters, hit men, gamblers and abusers. There is not one page of joy in the entire novel, but it is a very worthwhile read as it examines the negative effects that actions have on family, friends and even strangers.

The story revolves around two sisters, Risa and Giulia, and the cruel and indelible marks left behind following their responsibility in the death and cover-up of Risa's abusive husband, aided by male family friend Chooch. Though a baby at the time of his father's death, Fab (Fabrizio) will obsess about the father he does not know, leading to tragic consequences; a senseless act of revenge causes the death of Risa's in-laws and a mother (Risa) is cast forever in a kind of limbo.

Saint of the Narrows Street is meticulous in its detailing of life in this small Brooklyn neighborhood with characters so carefully drawn and developed that their authenticity is never in question.

everything william boyle puts out goes to the top of my TBR. his grip on the nuance of modern noir and the heart of new york will always be a hitmaker. i loved it

Mesmerising characters, deceits, evasions.

Saint of the Narrows Street is a brilliant character driven novel. We follow the 18 years of Risa, her sister Guilia, Chooch and her son Fab after she kills (albeit accidentally and deservedly) her husband Sav.

We jump in parts as Fab moves from a baby, to a young child, a pre-teen and finally 18 and see the toll of keeping such a secret from their family and the tight Brooklyn community they live in.

Beautifully written, realistic flawed characters, a highly recommended read.

Thanks to NetGalley, Soho Crime and the author for an ARC of this book in return for an honest review.