Rick Riordan

The real Boston?

Twenty one people were killed on Commercial Street in Boston’s North End on Jan. 15, 1919, when a tank of molasses ruptured and exploded. An eight-foot-high wave of the syrupy brown liquid moved down Commercial Street at 35 mph. Wreckage of the collapsed tank is visible in background, center, next to light -colored warehouse.

The original Dunkin’ Donuts store, in the Boston inner-suburb of Quincy.

“I guess no true Bostonian would trust a place that was sunny and pleasant all the time. But a gritty, perpetually cold and gloomy neighborhood? Throw in a couple of Dunkin’ Donuts locations, and I’m right at home.”

— Rick Riordan (born 1964), raised in Texas, this novelist now lives in Boston.

Just keep caffeinated

Three deckers in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood.

Three deckers in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood.

“I guess no true Bostonian would trust a place that was sunny and pleasant all the time. But a gritty, perpetually cold and gloomy neighborhood? Throw in a couple of Dunkin’ Donuts locations, and I’m right at home.” 


― Rick Riordan,  in The Sword of Summer