The Given Day by Dennis Lehane

I associate Dennis Lehane with good thrillers, like Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone.  In this book, however, he takes a historical topic and turns it into a page-turning novel.

This book follows two men: Danny and Luther.  Danny is a white police office in Boston who father is the Chief of Police.  Seeking a detective badge, he agrees to go undercover to infiltrate several organizations accused of being anarchists.  However, he finds the labor union organized by the police in no way anti-government and begins to believe in what they are doing.  Meanwhile, Luther is a black man who falls in love with a woman and follows her to Ohio where she has family.  When he runs into some trouble down there, he ends up moving to Boston and working for Danny's family.
 
The book follows both of their lives and their decisions in Boston around 1917-1920, and gives a very colorful depiction of the city in those days.  The story's climax is during the multi-day Boston policeman's strike, which throws the city into chaos.  Intermixed throughout the entire book are short vignettes about Babe Ruth, during the height of his baseball fame. 

Lehane's great writing really kept my attention.  I was hoping for the characters to have things work out and I was interested in the politics in Boston.  The Ruth stories also helped describe the time and place outside of the two main characters.