"I know quite a few cops, but none I recognized seemed to be taking part in this investigation."
A DRINK BEFORE THE WAR
Dennis Lehane
It's been a while since I last heard the whip-crack smart-aleck jazz of a detective novel protagonist's first-person voice. Dennis Lehane first socked my worldview in the jaw when I saw Season 3 of The Wire, a show for which he'd written several episodes. He went on to continue through Season 5. Mystic River is his masterpiece, but back in 2010, when my feverish quest to become a publishable novelist inclined me towards researching the debut novels of writers I admired, I happened upon A Drink Before the War in a bargain bin at the Strand Bookstore in downtown Manhattan on 12th St.
The spare, musical voice allows a lot to fit in under 300 pages, including rages against politicos, rants on race and racism, massive gangwar gun battles, domestic abuse and gentrification.
Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro are the cavalier, wise-cracking P.I. team that gets in over their heads when a prominent politician sends them to find a black cleaning lady who had allegedly stolen some confidential state documents.
The race stuff is pretty on-point, in terms of the white Irish working-class protag checking himself and noting when he lets himself go. Doesn't mean the overall structure and how it struggles to accommodate race isn't at all problematic.
Gets preachy but when it squeezes back into its lane, it's a beauty to watch.
Dennis Lehane
It's been a while since I last heard the whip-crack smart-aleck jazz of a detective novel protagonist's first-person voice. Dennis Lehane first socked my worldview in the jaw when I saw Season 3 of The Wire, a show for which he'd written several episodes. He went on to continue through Season 5. Mystic River is his masterpiece, but back in 2010, when my feverish quest to become a publishable novelist inclined me towards researching the debut novels of writers I admired, I happened upon A Drink Before the War in a bargain bin at the Strand Bookstore in downtown Manhattan on 12th St.
The spare, musical voice allows a lot to fit in under 300 pages, including rages against politicos, rants on race and racism, massive gangwar gun battles, domestic abuse and gentrification.
Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro are the cavalier, wise-cracking P.I. team that gets in over their heads when a prominent politician sends them to find a black cleaning lady who had allegedly stolen some confidential state documents.
The race stuff is pretty on-point, in terms of the white Irish working-class protag checking himself and noting when he lets himself go. Doesn't mean the overall structure and how it struggles to accommodate race isn't at all problematic.
Gets preachy but when it squeezes back into its lane, it's a beauty to watch.