Product Description

Summer in Boston. The week before Independence Day. A city steeped in history and racial strife. A city about to be ripped apart by an unspeakable scandal and a raging gang war ...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #217942 in Books
• Published on: 1998-10-01
• Binding: Paperback
• 334 pages

Synopsis
Set in summertime Boston, this novel tells of Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, tough private investigators in a city about to be ripped apart by an unspeakable scandal and a raging gang war.

From the Back Cover
Summer in Boston. The week before Independence Day. A city steeped in history and racial strife. A city about to be ripped apart by an unspeakable scandal and a raging gang war ...

Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro are tough private investigators who know the blue-collar neighbourhoods and ghettos of Boston's Dorchester section as only natives can. Working out of an old church belfry, Kenzie and Gennaro take on a seemingly simple assignment for a prominent politician: uncover ther whereabouts of Jenna Angeline, a black cleaning woman who has allegedly stolen cofidential Statehouse documents.

But finding Jenna proves easy compared to staying alive once they have. 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 state government.

About the Author
Dennis Lehane
Dennis Lehane is the author of A DRINK BEFORE THE WAR (which won the Shamus Award for Best First Novel); DARKNESS, TAKE MY HAND; SACRED; GONE, BABY, GONE; PRAYERS FOR RAIN and MYSTIC RIVER. A native of Dorchester, Massachusetts he lives in the Boston area with his wife, Sheila, and their two English bulldogs, Marlon and Stella.

Customer Reviews

Sorry but a bit of a disappointment.
Having recently read the reviews for Dennis Lehane's books here I thought I had discovered my next "favorite author". I will give his next book in the series a go but I found this book to be a bit of a let down. The principle characters are fine but the plot is a bit ridiculous (PI's shooting up half of Boston). Attacks and shootouts are poorly described and in places you have to reread to make sense of it. Don't see what the fuss is about, yet.

Superb
Crime in not a genre I generally read, but I discovered Lehane through the recommendation of a good friend and through his work on the HBO series 'The Wire'. He is a great find. Lehane is a superb writer by any standards. His prose is razor sharp and knowing, and there is always an ironic edge to his characters' relationship to the corrupt and dirty world in which they are immersed. Despite the violence and the macho poses and the familiarity of the story lines, there is a real intelligence at work here, and at times a tenderness too, particularly in the relationship between Gennaro and Kenzie, that raises him way above the genre. Highly recommended.

A cracker - awaken your inner wiseass!
What a hugely enjoyable novel! Sure, this is a debut effort and, sure, it may be a bit episodic and, sure, it asks the reader to suspend a lot of disbelief... but it's still such an exhilarating ride with a superbly likeable pair of wiseass lead characters in Patrick and Angie, some considerably insightful social/racial commentary and a great sense of place. Lehane, who is still relatively young, could yet become as important a chronicler of Boston as King is of Maine or Dickens is of Victorian London. And the dialogue just crackles... the genius here is in seamlessly weaving deadly serious themes with a light and comedic (sometimes even farcical!) tone.