South Boston’s hardscrabble history and abundant local color make it fertile ground for fiction, but it’s often done a disservice by stories that rely on garish caricatures and lazy stereotypes. Thankfully, “Broken Irish,’’ the Southie-based second novel by local writer Edward J. Delaney, treats its strong ensemble of characters with dignity, even as they plunge headlong into tragedy.

Set on the cusp of the millennium, the novel depicts a community in upheaval. The institutions that bound the neighborhood together are crumbling, as is the siege mentality that long kept Southie an isolated, Irish enclave. Whitey Bulger is gone, but the emerging sexual abuse scandal in the Boston archdiocese shows that the shepherds were, in some cases, no better than the wolves. “Southie,’’ according to one character, “was like a purgatory from which many could simply not escape.’’