A Drink Before the War - Softcover

Dennis Lehane

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553820540 ISBN 13: 9780553820546

Publisher: Bantam Books, 1995

Synopsis

Kenzie and Gennaro are private investigators in the blue-collar neighborhoods and ghettos of South Boston-they know it as only natives can. Working out of an old church belfry, Kenzie and Gennaro take on a seemingly simple assignment for a prominent politician: to uncover the whereabouts of Jenna Angeline, a black cleaning woman who has allegedly stolen confidential state documents. Finding Jenna, however, is easy compared to staying alive once they've got her. The investigation escalates, implicating members of Jenna's family and rival gang leaders while uncovering extortion, assassination, and child prostitution extending from bombed-out ghetto streets to the highest levels of government. A Drink Before the War , the first in Lehane's acclaimed series with Boston detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro, is a remarkable debut that is at once a pulsating crime thriller and a mirror of our world, one in which the worst human horrors are found closest to home, and the most vicious obscenities are committed in the name of love.

About this title

About the Author

Dennis Lehane is the author of ten previous novels—including the New York Times bestsellers Live by Night; Moonlight Mile; Gone, Baby, Gone; Mystic River; Shutter Island; and The Given Day—as well as Coronado, a collection of short stories and a play. He lives in California with his family.

From Kirkus Reviews

Patrick Kenzie is a Dorchester, Mass., boy born and bred. Now, working out of a church belfry as a private detective (along with partner Angela Gennaro, who has been his best friend since childhood and suffers at the hands of an abusive husband), he is hired by a senator to locate some papers reportedly stolen by an African-American (the senator uses a less polite term) cleaning woman. When the woman is gunned down in downtown Boston, it becomes clear that the materials in her possession were not the government documents the senator had claimed. The sure pacing, humor, and clear sense of place are unusually strong for a debut novel. Lehane's depictions of working-class Dorchester and the great divide between its Irish-American and African-American inhabitants are so on-target the reader could practically use them as a map and drive right into town. Even better are the descriptions of local foibles. Kenzie recounts that a friend had once been successful at removing a Denver boot (a clamp, which makes it impossible to move a car, placed around a car's tire after too many traffic tickets) and was downhearted to find that it was a fluke and that he would not be ``making more money than Michael Jackson.'' There is a lot of gun play here, and plenty of other violence too. Not only does Gennaro regularly come into work with black eyes, but Kenzie also recalls his firefighter father, a man whom he sarcastically refers to as ``the Hero,'' but who was brutal in his own home. A lively debut about residents of the Boston metropolitan area who don't summer in Hyannisport. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bantam Books
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0553820540
• ISBN 13: 9780553820546
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 334