Saint of the Narrows Street - by William Boyle

About the Book

"Gravesend, Brooklyn, 1986. Risa Franzone lives in a ground-floor apartment on Saint of the Narrows Street with her bad-seed husband Saverio and their eight-month-old baby Fabrizio. Risa is a loving mother, a faithful wife, a saintly neighbor, as she has learned to be--but lately, her husband's slow dive into criminality and abuse has threatened her peace, raising concerns about her and her baby's safety. On the night her younger sister Giulia moves in with Risa to recover from a bad break-up, a fateful accident occurs: Risa, boiled over with anger and fear, strikes a drunk, erratic Sav with a cast-iron pan, killing him on the spot. The sisters are left with a choice: notify the authorities and make a case for self-defense, or bury the man's body and go on with their lives as best they can"--

Book Synopsis

As an Italian American family's decades-old secret begins to unravel, they will have to bear the consequences--and face each other--in this thrilling south Brooklyn-set tragic opera of the highest caliber from crime fiction luminary William Boyle.

William Boyle is the master of Brooklyn-set crime fiction and Saint of the Narrows Street is his magnum opus. For fans of The Sopranos, Jonathan Lethem, and Dennis Lehane.

Gravesend, Brooklyn, 1986: Risa Franzone lives in a ground-floor apartment on Saint of the Narrows Street with her bad-seed husband, Saverio, and their eight-month-old baby, Fabrizio. On the night Risa's younger sister, Giulia, moves in to recover from a bad breakup, a fateful accident occurs: Risa, boiled over with anger and fear, strikes a drunk, erratic Sav with a cast-iron pan, killing him on
the spot.

The sisters are left with a choice: notify the authorities and make a case for self-defense, or bury the man's body and go on with their lives as best they can. In a moment of panic, in the late hours of the night, they call upon Sav's childhood friend--the sweet, loyal Christopher "Chooch" Gardini--to help them, hoping they can trust him to carry a secret like this.

Over the vast expanse of the next eighteen years, life goes on in the working-class Italian neighborhood of Gravesend as Risa, Giulia, Chooch, and eventually Fabrizio grapple with what happened that night. A standout work of character-driven crime fiction from a celebrated author of the form, Saint of the Narrows Street is a searing and richly drawn novel about the choices we make and how they shape our lives.

Review Quotes

Praise for Saint of the Narrows Street

BookPage's Top 10 Books of the Month
A BookBrowse Top Pick
A CrimeReads Most Anticipated Crime Book of the Year
Publishers Weekly's Spring 2025 Preview Top 10 Mysteries & Thrillers

"Boyle captures the essence of noir, pitting inept schemers against the big bad consequences of crimes--both petty and gravely serious. Writing beautifully about good souls trapped in bad situations, Boyle's characters evoke the working-class romantics of Bruce Springsteen, small-time and scrambling for money, love, or answers."
--Lisa Levy, Oprah Daily

"This isn't a crime novel that relies merely on suspense. Rather, we eagerly read Saint of the Narrows Street because of its beautifully rendered characters and haunting sense of place . . . Boyle is able to do what today's best crime fiction writers do so well -- tell a captivating, page-turning thriller, but one defined by its characters and the choices they make, rather than the circumstances into which they have been thrust. This subtle difference blurs any imaginary line between genre and great literature, and results in quiet moments of grace, of pain and love."
--The Washington Post

"A potent crime saga with surprising emotional heft."
--Toronto Star

"A treasure of a book written by the doyen of American crime fiction . . . illustrate[s] how small dreams can turn into large problems, and good people can get trapped in poverty, hopelessness and violence. William Boyle may well be the most skilled, nuanced and underappreciated American novelist working today."
--Durango Telegraph

"Crime with heart is hard to do, and Boyle offers a master class of that here. Intricate, heartfelt, rich, and beautifully written, Saint of the Narrows Street is Boyle's best novel so far, and that's saying a lot."
--Gabino Iglesias, CrimeReads

"Boyle's sympathy and understanding for his damaged characters, accented by crisp dialogue, elevate the engrossing plot and show how a place shapes people."
--Oline H. Cogdill, Shelf Awareness

"The stunning Saint of the Narrows Street is William Boyle's best novel yet, a vibrant, operatic tale of two resilient, big-hearted sisters and the fateful night that sets their life on a path they never intended. Not since Richard Price has a writer brought New York to such vivid, spectacular life, and Boyle's southern Brooklyn is all his own: a neighborhood pulsing with hard-earned humor, dive-bar pleasures and thunderous heartbreak."
--Megan Abbott, New York Times bestselling author of Beware the Woman

"No one can make the everyday vagaries of life feel like Greek tragedies the way William Boyle can. He effortlessly maps the path of desire that moves through the human heart like burning chrome."
--S.A. Cosby, New York Times bestselling author of All the Sinners Bleed

"You don't read a William Boyle novel as much as you inhabit his intricately drawn world. Saint of the Narrows Street is on par with the best of Pete Dexter, Richard Price, and William Kennedy. This is a tour de force, knockout book; an immediate classic that will stay with you long after you finish the last perfect chapter."
--Ace Atkins, New York Times bestselling author of Don't Let the Devil Ride and The Heathens

"Saint of the Narrows Street is a hundred-proof shot of tragic love. Nobody writes like William Boyle. Every character has a huge thumping heart. You can smell the skeevy bars and taste the home-cooked lasagna. Boyle deals in details, but this is a big, epic novel, and it's his best yet."
--Eli Cranor, Edgar Award-winning author of Don't Know Tough

"A new William Boyle novel is always cause for celebration, and Saint of the Narrows Street might be his best work yet. A novel brilliant in structure and in its study of the long-term effects of a single violent crime. Ambitious in scope and impossible to put down. Boyle is that rare writer who is able to walk the line of social commentary and crime thriller."
--Willy Vlautin, author of The Horse

"With Saint of the Narrows Street, a magnum opus of family and crime, blood both shared and spilled, William Boyle proves himself once more the poet laureate of Brooklyn, and a writer of true craft and depth. He shows once more how the crime novel can peer as deep into the human heart as any other artform. William Boyle is the real thing. I don't know how else to say it."
--Jordan Harper, author of Everybody Knows

"With its rich setting, compelling plot and an unforgettable cast of characters--flawed and fascinating and heartbreakingly real--Saint of the Narrows Street will stay with you long after you turn the last page. A classic noir page-turner, it's also a deeply moving story about the dreams that keep us alive--and what happens when those dreams inevitably shatter."
--Alison Gaylin, Edgar Award-winning author of We Are Watching

"Saint of the Narrows Street contains all of Bill's trademarks: a knowing and vivid picture of his native Brooklyn; a kaleidoscope of rich and fascinating characters; and beautifully crafted prose and dialogue. It's noir that never forgets its heart, and Bill gives each wonderfully-named character a wellspring of humanity that makes you root for their meager wins, and ache for them even more in their tragic losses."
--James D.F. Hannah, Shamus Award-winning author of the Henry Malone series

"William Boyle's Saint of the Narrows Street is incisive, beautiful, brutal--a book that examines what happens in a small world when big secrets are held down. Set in a neighborhood you will smell and feel as if it's your own, this novel presents a cast of characters you'll swear you've known or known about for years, and yet they'll find a way to surprise you. Death echoes, rumors kill, and the living are cursed on Saint of the Narrows Street."
--Henry Wise, author of Holy City

"William Boyle's Saint of the Narrows Street drew me in and wrecked me. A powerful story about the ripple effect of violent acts on the lives of good people. Everyone needs to read this book."
--Nikki Dolson, author of All Things Violent

"Set in the Brooklyn of good old boys rather than oat milk cortados, this gritty novel follows Risa Franzone, a young mother who kills her husband by mistake and does her best to cover it up. But Boyle, who excels at dark tragedies along these lines, ensures that nothing is ever quite so simple."
--Bloomberg

"Boyle continues filling out the Gravesend neighborhood of Brooklyn with powerful, emotionally complex crime stories. In Saint of the Narrows Street, two sisters arrange for a terrible secret to be hidden, reverberating across the generations. Boyle's work is always traced with melancholy and never shies away from the tough moral predicaments his characters face."
--Dwyer Murphy, CrimeReads

"A city neighborhood, like a small rural town, can be a place comforting in its familiarity but deadening in its limitations, an insular world despite the possibilities just beyond it, and Boyle conveys all this beautifully."
--MysteryTribune

"To read William Boyle's fiction is to be immersed in the characters and locations at the heart of his work -- oftentimes focusing on people living on the fringes of the law in working-class Brooklyn neighborhoods."
--Tobias Carroll, InsideHook

"I'm serious, Saint of the Narrows Street will be one of the most talked about books of 2025. Bank on it."
--Frank Reardon, BULL Magazine

"William Boyle is the best author far too many have never read. His ability to create distinctive characters, taut plots and striking moods and atmosphere is matched by few and he sets them all in locations that actually become another character through his descriptive prose. Two sisters in a Brooklyn neighborhood live in a culture circumscribed by class, ethnic identity, religion, family ties and loyalty. While trying to withhold a huge secret from being exposed they learn those values that can protect a group can also become a prison, especially when threatened by guilt and remorse. First time readers will discover a superb author, one they will want to share with others."
--Bill Cusumano, Square Books (Oxford, MS)

"This might sound like a bit of an oxymoron, but nobody does dysfunctional family crime like William Boyle. And this is a perfect example of that. One moment in time, a fatal reaction, that festers like a boil for decades until it bursts leaving more lives ruined because of that one hidden act. Brooklyn noir at its best!"
--Pete Mock, McIntyre's Books (Pittsboro, NC)

"A shocking, surprising, and thought-provoking tale that will likely stay with readers long after they turn the final page."
--Mystery & Suspense Magazine

"Boyle is a smart, gritty, funny writer, and this is his best yet."
--Blood & Whiskey

"Saint of Narrows Street addresses tragedy and regret within three generations of an Italian-American family living in Gravesend, Brooklyn, who are harboring a dark secret. Yes, there is murder and mayhem, but the richly textured characters are what drive the narrative in this novel."
--Retreats from Oblivion: The Journal of NoirCon

"If you're in Brooklyn and want to grab a slice of pizza, you go to Totonno's or L&B Spumoni Gardens. If you're not in Brooklyn and want to grab a slice of life there, reach for William Boyle's
seventh novel, Saint of the Narrows Street . . . Boyle, who grew up in the neighborhood he depicts, has a pointillist's eye for detail, with every image meticulously crafted in a way that seems effortless. You can smell the cigarette smoke and desperation wafting from the dive bar, the freezer lasagna being reheated when the priest drops by uninvited, the moist earth covering a grave whose secrets can't be buried nearly deep enough. Fans of Dennis Lehane or George Pelecanos will find Saint of the Narrows Street as authentic and satisfying as Spumoni Garden's Sicilian pie, but unlike their menu, there's no hero in sight."
--BookPage, Starred Review

"Boyle structures the sprawling tale like a Greek tragedy, mining potent themes of legacy and class with such force and empathy that readers may come to think of him as the Balzac of Brooklyn. It's a stunning achievement."
--Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"An established noir master, Boyle outdoes himself in crafting a novel of deep dimensions marked by intergenerational trauma, family strife, and failed religion . . . A great, gravely unsettling novel that welcomes repeated readings."
--Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

"William Boyle, a master of atmosphere, crafts a gritty world of tough-talkers, heavy-drinkers, and good folks just trying to make ends meet . . . Despite being a neighborhood in one of the largest cities in the world, Boyle's Gravesend feels insular and intimate, and readers may find themselves emerging from the novel, back into the real world, talking with a little bit of Brooklyn flair."
--BookBrowse

"Riveting."
--BookTrib

Praise for William Boyle

"Boyle studies his neighbors with a mixture of affection and despair worthy of a Bruce Springsteen song. He has a real thing for working-class folks. People like this, they need people like Boyle."
―The New York Times Book Review

"[Boyle] knows the music of the Italian American voices, from punk to bar stool to operatic, like nobody else: Mob goons, college dropouts, melancholy widows and pink-haired rockers mix it up in this deliciously convoluted tale that reads like a fresh new season of The Sopranos."
--The Washington Post

"A funny, gritty, touching narrative about the strength of three New York women caught in a world of abusive men, broken families, and mob violence. Crime fiction usually stays within the confines of the genre, but Boyle breaks away from those restrictions."
―NPR

"As wildly funny and sweet as it is frenetic and harrowing, William Boyle's new novel is full of dark splendor. Imagine Martin Scorsese and David O. Russell collaborating with Gena Rowlands and Ellen Burstyn and making magic."
--Megan Abbott, New York Times bestselling author of You Will Know Me

"William Boyle's stark and turbulent crime thriller boasts an endlessly fascinating and empathetic cast of characters. Hailing from Brooklyn himself, Boyle imbues the setting with an air of authenticity and stark realism as his characters leap from the page. Readers can only grasp at the slimmest of hopes in this grim, modern-day noir, but the determination of Boyle's characters defies expectations."
―BookPage, Starred Review

"Boyle's novels always deliver, and they always work on different levels: as noir and crime, as character studies, as working-class social commentaries. They're also impossible to put down and stay with you long after you've finished them."
―Southwest Review

"Masterly literary noir. This mature, nuanced work is a must for George Pelecanos fans."
―Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"Boyle emerges not just as a consummate crime writer but as a poet of the underclass, unwaveringly portraying lives gone wrong but still finding a little moonlight 'spilling its light on the cracks in the sidewalks and all the cracked hearts.'"
―Booklist, Starred Review

About the Author

William Boyle is the author of eight books set in the southern Brooklyn neighborhood where he was born and raised, including his debut, Gravesend; the story collection Death Don't Have No Mercy; The Lonely Witness, nominated for the Hammett Prize; A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself, an Amazon Best Book of 2019; City of Margins, a Washington Post Best Thriller and Mystery Book of 2020; and Shoot the Moonlight Out, listed by CrimeReads as one of the ten best noir novels of 2021. He currently lives in Oxford, Mississippi.