It’s been sixteen years since “Ray Boy” Calabrese’s actions led to the death of a young man. The victim’s brother, Conway D’Innocenzio, is now a 29-year-old Brooklynite wasting away at a local Rite Aid, stuck in the past and drawn into a darker side of himself when he hears that Ray Boy’s has been released. But even with the perfect plan in place, Conway can’t bring himself to take the ultimate revenge.Meanwhile, failed actress Alessandra returns to her native Gravesend after the death of her mother, torn between a desperate need to escape immediately back to LA and the ease with which she sinks back into neighborhood life. Alessandra and Conway are walking eerily similar paths—staring down the rest of their lives, caring for their aging fathers, lost in the youths they squandered—and each must decide what comes next.In the tradition of American noir authors like Dennis Lehane and James Ellroy, William Boyle’s Gravesend brings the titular neighborhood to life in this story of revenge, desperation, and escape.

Brooklyn is an incredible mosaic of the human experience. Within this New York borough's crowded city blocks, there are infinite stories of success and failure, hope and despair, euphoria and suffering. Gravesend, one of Brooklyn's most historic neighborhoods, possesses a rich heritage that is, at once, typical of the American spirit in its ambition and energy, yet is also unique with its colorful pageantry of luxury hotels, pleasure parks, and larger-than-life personalities. Gravesend: The Home of Coney Island takes readers on a fascinating journey from the town's first settlement in the 1640s by Lady Deborah Moody, an intrepid and visionary leader of religious freedom, across four centuries of progress, conflict, and change. Containing over 120 black-and-white images, this stunning illustrated history brings to life early figures and events that shaped Gravesend's past and initiated Coney Island's prominence as the world's playground. Like a visitor of yesteryear, readers will stroll along the busy boardwalk, taste the world-famous hot dogs from Nathan's Restaurant, explore the renowned dance halls, race tracks, and casinos, and thrill at the kaleidoscopic assortment of roller coasters and other breathtaking rides, such as the Parachute Jump, at the celebrated Dreamland, Luna, and Steeplechase Parks.

Permanently settled in 1645, the farming town of Gravesend, Long Island, was annexed to the city (now borough) of Brooklyn, New York, in 1894. Few reminders from Gravesend's rural days survive around the urban landscape it has become. Even its more recent past is quickly disappearing.

Gravesend was like most other towns in the UK during the course of the First World War. When the call came to serve King and Country, local men enlisted in their thousands, but sadly not all of them returned.This book gives an insight into the Tilbury to Gravesend Pontoon Bridge, which allowed the rapid deployment of troops in the event of a German invasion along the East Coast. It provided a quicker route to get troops, equipment and supplies from Essex into Kent for transportation across to France. It looks at the role both New Tavern and Shornemead Fort, part of the London Defence system, played in preventing the German Navy from carrying out direct attacks on London.There is an account of the Gravesend riots, in which groups of local people burnt and looted premises they believed belonged to German aliens who were residents in the town, and the unique story of Captain Robert Campbell, taken as a prisoner by the Germans early in the war. He was allowed home by the Kaiser to see his dying mother one last time, and voluntarily returned to captivity in Germany, on his word of honour to do so.The story of Sir Gilbert Parker, the wartime MP for Gravesend, is also told. He was instrumental in convincing America to join the war as a British Allie, which was no easy task, as the United States Justice Department estimated there were some 480,000 Germans living in America at the time.The book also tells the individual stories of Gravesend's men who fought in the war, some who survived and returned to their loved ones, and others who were not so fortunate. It documents the triumphs and tragedies of Gravesend's people as they sought to find normality amongst a reality far removed from anything they had ever known before.