Coronado (2006)

Dennis Lehane offers a less sanguine glimpse of humanity in the five chilly stories in his 2006 collection Coronado, narrated with understated grace by Stanley Tucci. In ''Until Gwen,'' a newly released ex-con hooks up with his grifter dad, and the two zigzag to both a grim understanding and a grimmer destination. In ''Gone Down to Corpus,'' a bitter high school football star destroys the home of the rich kid who fumbled in their final game. Lehane writes beautifully about constricted lives in a world where blue-collar male rage is always at a low simmer. Alas, these tales lack the wide-bore impact of Lehane's novels, like 2001's Mystic River, and Tucci can't breathe life into this slight, wintry collection.

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