A drink before the war

A madcap race through 1990s Boston as two private detectives get sucked into a political scandal that breeds a gang war, and all the while trying to stay alive. Lehane's debut novel and a racy easy to read action story.

Two politicians hire Patrick Kenzie to find a cleaning woman who has taken documents from their office and disappeared. They want the woman found and they want the documents back. By the end of the novel there must be fifty dead bodies (we lose count) in the city morgue and gallons of blood draining into the street.

The dialogue is the black humour of noir detective stories of the era, the sort where the detective looks out through the venetian blinds in high contrast black and white TV shows. There's a Porsche, a psycho guy who, luckily, is on their side, and a cast of coppers doing copper type things. All in all a fun read for a long wet afternoon.

wanted to read these before #5 comes out next month, just to get back in that world–it's been too long since I've read a Lehane I liked. Took me less than a page to remember why I got into Kenzie/Gennaro, and within 5 it was like I'd been reunited with a long-lost love. This is a great read–the language, the plot, the characters...really can't ask for more.

The unbelievable events in this book were just barely balanced by Lehane's unusual ability to weave some amazing words together.