 "Good Enough to Read the Next One" | 2008-09-09 |
| - Reviewed By mononadoug |
'A Drink Before War' began Dennis Lehane's deservedly popular Kenzie-Gennaro noir detective series. Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro are the epitome of hardboiled private eyes based in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood.
Lehane echoes Raymond Chandler with wisecracking tough guys, lurid violence, and plenty of fast-paced action. Lehane develops his characters emotionally while exploring the bitter racial divide between Dorchester and Roxbury.
Kenzie is hired by a powerful white liberal State Senator to find his missing black cleaning lady - and some 'documents' that went missing when she did. Patrick and Angie do find her and that leads them right into the heart of a nasty family fight, one that is fought with brutality and finality.
'A Drink Before War' was Lehane's first novel and it shows at times. For example, there is some painfully bad dialogue in a clumsy bit of badinage that plays on the sexual tension between these two old friends from the neighborhood. Angie has found a phone number:
"Angie said, 'Got it.'
'Give it to me.'
She didn't, but she gave me the number."
Groan, said the reader.
Ok, so Lehane had room to grow in 1994 and grow he did as his work on this series (the second book is Darkness, Take My Hand (Patrick Kenzie/Angela Gennaro Novels)), the great TV series The Wire - Seasons 1-4, and Mystic River demonstrate. 'A Drink Before War' is entertaining genre fiction with enough hints of greater promise to whet the reader's appetite for more. Recommended.
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 "not good" | 2008-08-07 |
| - Reviewed By hol-com |
| If I had read Lehanes's books in the order that they were written, I would never have continued beyond this first effort. His stories never tap dance around the darkness and decay that is increasingly closer to the surface of civility but this was too bleak to recommend to anyone. While it is true that every person is capable of both great goodness and great evil, life is cheap and violence the way of much of the world, this seemed too far over the edge for even a cynical realist like myself. |
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| "In the shadow of Walter Mosley" | 2008-05-20 |
| - Reviewed By tim-lieder |
The problem with mystery series is that you rarely read the first one first. You jump in somewhere in the middle since your friend recommended the book or the movie was just made. That was my experience in reading Gone, Baby, Gone (Harper Fiction). This of course leads to you going back and reading the previous books (should you get hooked) knowing all along the final outcome. Detective fiction writers are notorious for having their characters mention past incidents that are actually the plots of previous books.
So I went into this book more or less knowing the ending. Usually that's a deal breaker for a mystery but Lehane's prose and his dialogue make up for the advanced knowledge. And it's nice seeing the characters in earlier times. Working class Boston full of seedy bars and desperate people is one of the characters of the piece and it serves it well.
However, this is a first novel and as a first novel it has many rough patches. Lehane seems to be wanting to say too much about race relations and poverty. In fact he stops the action several times in order for the characters to get into an argument. Not only is race a factor but the whole book is too close to Devil in a Blue Dress (Easy Rawlins Mysteries). There's the lying politicians looking for something that he's not telling the detective about. There's the cast of ne'er do wells and there's the pedophilia angle. Throw in a psychotic best friend for the protagonist and one wonders if Lehane should start sending Mosley royalty checks.
However, calling a book a Walter Mosley imitation is not the worst criticism. In later books, Lehane would develop his own voice and style (especially in making Angie a more important character) but this is his first one and for a debut novel, it's really good. |
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 "Incredible Introduction to Kenzie & Angie" | 2008-05-17 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2N8KZ8J2DMQVV |
Having already read later Lehane novels, this was an incredible introduction to the characters and an intriguing story weaving Boston politics and gangs. It is so much more than a mystery or thriller--Lehane really makes you care about all of the characters--including Bubba!
The violence has repercussions--Patrick and Angie do what is necessary but not without being haunted by their actions. |
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| "great book" | 2008-04-29 |
| - Reviewed By lovermovie |
| Dennis Lehane's debut novel is fantastic. Very well written and suspenseful. Very sharp and witty. I highly recommend it. |
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 "good intro..." | 2008-03-28 |
| - Reviewed By User: AY46DEOJJYFTW |
| while not as absorbing as GONE, BABY, GONE and not as intricate a plotline this book is nonetheless a great intro to the characters. Lehane writes from his gut and there's not a whole lot of filler. Great characters and story. |
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| "Good, not his best.....but worth reading" | 2008-01-19 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3U4HYYVW02O0I |
| This was a really good book, and pretty good for a first novel. I think it is important to read as far as an introduction to the characters that you will love reading about in Lehane's following novels. Not my favorite, but worth the investment. |
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| "Boston Battleground" | 2008-01-13 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1VG0K8BQDDJH9 |
Boston Battleground.
A drink before the War was Dennis Lahane's debut novel. It introduces us to private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro as they work the dark underworld of and mean streets of Boston, Mass. An artfully combined detective and political thriller, the 2 private eyes are engaged to search for stolen politically sensitive documents. Their quest leads them into the explosively changed, racial underworld of Boston. Violence, distrust, hypocrisy, and just outright meanness all lead to an explosive conclusion. Not for the faint of heart or intellectually squeamish.
Outstanding debut work. I have read most of Mr. Lehane's novels but for some reason failed to read his first three. I am now making up for that in a most delicious way. He is indeed a wonderful writer in the vain of Lee Child and Michael Connelly. He brings the detective genre alive while grabbing the reader from the very start.
Some language and some very graphic violence. Some eluded to graphic sex. All germane to the plot and not gratuitous but could cause some revulsion.
Must read, especially for those who like detective genre novels. Good read anytime. |
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| "A hot mystery thriller in the noir tradition!" | 2008-01-05 |
| - Reviewed By tamara_nichols |
Dennis Lehane, famous for the novel and resulting movie Mystic River, has written a series of detective novels about PI Patrick Kenzie and his partner Angie Genaro. This pair of Boston detectives are united by a common history of domestic abuse and a childhood romance that derailed before it could succeed. They are hired to find some papers supposedly stolen by a domestic and are consequently embroiled in a cover-up conspiracy that has connections throughout the city of Boston, including some of the local gangs.
Kenzie and Genaro navigate this web of dark conspiracy and ultimately learn the truth at the heart of this mystery. Their job is life-threatening and dangerous, but these characters are not easily intimidated and know how to manage tricky situations, with the help of some bizarre friends. In the best noir tradition, the dialogue is filled with wry humor and sassy repartee. The characters are beautifully described and engaging. The story is enthralling with an dengaging romantic yet melancholy tension between the two main characters that creates a vibrant yet chthonic atmosphere.
A word of warning, this story is filled with violence and some graphic descriptions of heinous child abuse. Normally this would keep me from finishing the novel, but it was so well written I stayed with the story. |
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| "The Body Count Continues..." | 2007-12-28 |
| - Reviewed By paultblack |
| Dennis Lehane is one of those writers in the same genre as Mickey Spillane and other "hard-boiled" private eye authors of the past whose main job seems to be to show readers how really rotten people can be. Unfortunately, Lehane gets a little bit beyond the accepted level of realism that an author who writes books like this should create. If you firmly believe in the "willing suspension of disbelief" theory, which says that you're willing to suspend your general logic of how the world works in order to be entertained by a book, or a movie, or etc., then you have to stretch that pretty darn far when it comes to this series of books. Lehane litters the landscape with an awful lot of bodies, probably more than any city, even Boston (where it's set)would be willing to accept. His main characters, private eyes Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro, are well described, but not very believable. Even after reading over one half of the book, I couldn't generate very much interest in what happened to them. In order for me to really like these characters, I'd have to see some level of nobility in them, even if it's very slight. Neither of Lehane's private eyes show that. The level of interest they have, and the decisions the make, seems to revolve just around themselves, and nobody else. Even Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade had at least a minimal moral code they subscribed to. If you're interested in finding out how really rotten people can be to each other -- even the good guys -- then maybe this is for you. Otherwise, it winds up being mostly just depressing. |
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