A Drink Before the War

The mesmerizing, darkly
original novel that heralded the arrival of now New York Times
bestselling author Dennis Lehane, the master of the new noir—and introduced
Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, his smart and tough private investigators
weaned on the blue-collar streets of Dorchester.

A cabal of powerful Boston
politicians is willing to pay Kenzie and Gennaro big money for a seemingly
small job: to find a missing cleaning woman who stole some secret documents. As
Kenzie and Gennaro learn, however, this crime is no ordinary theft. It's about
justice, about right and wrong. But in Boston, finding the truth isn’t just a
dirty business . . . it’s deadly.

Private Investigators Kenzie and Gennaro are tasked to retrieve missing documents by a trio of politicians. The trail leads them into the midst of a gang war and reveals an act of child abuse. Kenzie struggles with memories of his own past while Gennaro deals with her abusive marriage.

“[Lehane] deserves to be included among the most interesting and accomplished American novelists of any genre or category.” - Washington Post Book World

“Mr. Lehane’s detective goes where few gumshoes have gone before. . . . This is good, serious stuff.” - New York Times Book Review

“[Lehane is] a hard-boiled heavyweight, pounding out work as emotionally complex and genre-bending as that of James Lee Burke or James Crumley. . . . In Lehane’s books, everyone grows up but no one escapes.” - Entertainment Weekly

“Harsh and chilling. . . . An absolutely terrific story.” - Boston Sunday Globe

“Dennis Lehane is the heir apparent. You read his stuff and think he’s got the great ones—Chandler, MacDonald, Parker—watching over him as he writes every page. But his voice is an original.” - Michael Connelly