In addition to being on a John Allen Paulos kick lately, I am also on a Dennis Lehane kick. I stopped in at the Seattle Mystery Bookshop (you should too, one of the best bookstores in existence) and stocked up on all the Lehane books I didn’t already own in paperback. So watch for reviews of the three books of his I haven’t yet read in the coming weeks.
A Drink Before the War is the first book starring Patrick Kenzie and Angeline Gennaro. They are private investigators in Boston who find people. In this case, a powerful state senator hires them to find the cleaning lady for one of his lackey senators. Seems she quit, disappeared on the same day certain photographs of the lackey senator (in a compromising position) also went missing. They assume she has them. So they want Kenzie and Gennaro to find her. Well, actually, they couldn’t care less about the cleaning lady. They just want the photographs. No photographs, no blackmail and no scandal. And they can then continue on their normal course of graft.
Now, why the cleaning lady Jenna Angeline, took the photographs is pretty quickly obvious. Kenzie finds her, but she talks him into not reporting back to the Senator so she can show Kenzie what she has on him. She hands over to him a photograph of the senator with a young boy, but also recognizable in the photograph is her ex-husband. He’s a gang boss and pimp. It’s the one coincidence in the book. Normally, I hate when mysteries are built on lots of coincidences, but Lehane generally does a good job of not building his stories on coincidence. This one is built entirely on coincidence, but it’s not a totally outrageous one. Shortly after turning over that one photograph to Kenzie, her ex, the gang boss known as Socia, has her killed and Kenzie is there to witness it. He doesn’t want to be implicated either.
However, the bulk of the photographs have yet to be recovered so Kenzie and Gennaro have to find those as well. Unfortunately, this puts him right smack in the middle of a gang war. Socia’s son Roland has his own rival gang, and he doesn’t seem too happy that his mother has been killed. Father vs. son, both of whom are gunning for Kenzie and Gennaro.
Again (or first, rather, since this is the first book from the author), Lehane pounds two themes into his readers. Crimes against children and their consequences. And somewhat related, his heroes have more than feet of clay. They have mean streaks and are more than willing to cut corners as well as generally do things for which god will send them to hell. For instance, in an incident prior to the story but described in a flashback, Kenzie beats the crap out of Gennaro’s asshole husband, who took it out on Gennaro after his release from the hospital. This scene is used to explain why Kenzie does nothing when Gennaro shows up for work with a black eye courtesy of said asshole husband.
The book is extremely engrossing and readable. Don’t read it though if you are sensitive to graphic violence or crimes against children.
Title: A drink before the war
Author: Dennis Lehane
Series: Kenzie-Gennaro book 1
Imprint / publisher: HarperTorch / HarperCollins
Format: Mass market paperback
Length: 277 p.
Publication date: December 2000
ISBN-10: 0-380-72623-8
Subject: Kenzie, Patrick (Fictitious character) — Fiction
Subject: Gennaro, Angela (Fictitious character) — Fiction
Subject: Private investigators — Massachusetts — Boston — Fiction
Subject: Family violence — Fiction
Subject: Boston (Mass.) — Fiction
LC classification: PS3562.E426 D75 1994
