*3.5 Stars* Once that ugliness has been forced into you, it becomes part of your blood, dilutes it, races through your heart and back out again, staining everything as it goes. The ugliness never goes away, never comes out, no matter what you do. Anyone who thinks otherwise is naive.There have been so many books I've read and fallen in love with, lately. I'd love to say I'm just that good at picking out books and taking extraordinary leaps to try new and exciting genres and different authors...but that's rarely the case. Yes, I have gotten so picky nowadays that I don't generally find many stinkers...but I don't usually take many risks. But I guess that's what I can count on one of my best friends and co-bloggers for-In the last year, I can attribute about, hmm, 80% of my favorite/absolute favorites to an adventurous alien named Anna. She takes risks I never would have had the guts to go through with, ie I Hunt Killers, This is Not a Test, Pines, etc. As you can see, she is my proverbial guinea pig, if you will. I looked at the grenades. Didn't have a clue what to do with them. I had the feeling that if I left the house, they'd roll off the bed, take out the entire building. I picked them up, gingerly, and put them in the fridge. Anyone broke in to steal my beer, they'd know I meant business. My point in saying all this, if you haven't guessed, is that she has helped me find some amazing books that I never would have tried. And with this gift, I have began to really expand my horizons, to really open my eyes wider to greater, grander stories. Do you realize how nice it is, how very very nice, to not be pigeon-holed to one genre? I LITERALLY go through moods and mercurial spurts for months on end where I don't know what the fuck I'll be in the mood to read. Meaning, it could be three months of fantasy, and then, inexplicably, all of a sudden I just HAVE to try a contemporary, or a dystopian (when done right, still my favorite), or a paranormal or whatever I feel like, really. I never have a clue, month-to-month, day-to-day, what I will want to read. That's why, when in the mood, I hurry to devour the very genre I'm obsessed with because I have no clue-literally none-when I will be in the mood for it again. Vanity and dishonesty may be vices, but they're also the first forms of protection I ever knew.As it is-I'm obsessed with tortured boys and thrillers right now. It kind of goes hand in hand that I'm so obsessed with this genre, though. What's not to love about peril, mystery, and young men who are ambiguous in character and tortured within? Whoops. Did I say that out loud....Yes, okay, I'm a sick little weirdo-get over it! You know this, if you read any of my reviews. I love flawed characters that long for a better life, for the girl they can't have, etc. etc. I don't know, call me crazy, but I just can't seem to get enough of these types of books. I'd been a punching bag for my father for eighteen years, and I'd never hit back. I kept believing, kept telling myself, it'll change; he'll get better. It's hard to close the door on optimistic expectations when you love someone.I guess, even if just briefly, I need to talk about the book and it's characters right? Patrick...boy have I heard a lot about this Patrick ;). He and Angie, his partner....okay. Never mind. I don't know how to do this!! I ran my hands through my hair, felt the grit and oil from the last day, smelled the trash and waste on my fingers. At that moment, I truly hated the world and everything in it.They get cases. They investigate crimes. They turn the people in when they find them (to their clients). Patrick has been in love with Angie since the third grade. Angie is married to an asshole. Patrick doesn't like the asshole....so he puts him in his place, every now and then, in sensible ways with sensible objects....sensibly. L.A. burns, and so many other cities smolder, waiting for the hose that will flood gasoline over the coals, and we listen to politicians who fuel our hate and our narrow views and tell us it's simply a matter of getting back to basics while they sit in their beachfront properties and listen to the surf so they won't have to hear the screams of the drowning. In this story, they are hired by real top-of-the-class types who have lost some documents after the maid up and left with them. What was supposed to be a simple case turns out to be deeper, scarier, more deathly than they ever could have imagined. And it is only opening them up to what I'm sure will be a very exciting series. My gun is, as Angie would say, "not a fuck-around thing." It's a .44 magnum automatic-an "automag," they call it gleefully in Soldier of Fortune and like publications-and I didn't purchase it out of penis envy or Eastwood envy or because I wanted to own the goddamned biggest gun on the block. I bought it for one simple reason: I'm a lousy shot.Bahaha this is all I thought about- I wish I had gotten more time to read this because I know I ruined many parts because I was so tired. I would pick up the book, totally excited, and then only get 10% done when I would start to nod off-seriously, my puppy is psycho. And I'm not so stupid as to think this book was boring-it wasn't. I would just be getting somewhere, something happening, and then BAM-my eyes started to close. Ugh. ARGHHH! So aggravating. So, a 3.5, I think, is fair. I can't say for sure it wouldn't have been higher or lower...but, from what I read, I liked that I felt deeply...and everyone knows I go based on feelings. I got good vibes from this one. I looked at Angie again. I wasn't worried about her; I was considering what would happen to my business if my partner shot the dicks off a barful of people in Lansington. I wasn't sure, but I didn't think we'd be able to keep that office in the church.All in all a wonderful addition to add to my list of ever-growing Anna wins. I only hope the series continues to grow on me. I hear great things about this wonderful cast of complex and flawed characters, making me excited to dig deeper into their world. I'm 10% into book two, and I already have a 5 star sitting pretty and ready to go...I figure it couldn't get any lower, right?? RIGHT?! Sigh. Guess I'll see! Angie once said, "Maybe that's what love is-counting the bandages until someone says, 'Enough.'"Maybe so. For more of my reviews, please visit: ****************Didn't even read the blurb.Don't need to because Anna said....Patrick.K.
My introduction to the fiction of Dennis Lehane begins with a BANG! and keeps popping for 277 pages, as if a stevedore spent big on the Fourth of July and can't stop chucking firecrackers around polite society. Published in 1994, the dirty, combustive energy of Lehane's debut seems appropriate for a novel that climaxes on Independence Day. Starting with a great title, A Drink Before the War takes place in and around present day Boston, where young private detective Patrick Kenzie is summoned to the Ritz-Carlton to meet state senators Sterling Mulkern and Brian Paulson. Kenzie -- the white son of a famed firefighter who was a loyal constituent of Sen. Mulkern's -- is hired to track down a black cleaning lady named Jenna Angeline who's disappeared with documents sensitive to an anti-gang bill going before the state senate. Kenzie, who narrates the first-person novel with the weary, smart-ass tone of a collegiate bartender, returns to his blue collar neighborhood of Dorchester, where his office is located in the belfry of St. Bartholomew's Church. He meets with his partner Angie Gennaro, a childhood friend Kenzie wishes was much more than. In spite of her tenacious resolve as an investigator, Gennaro endures an abusive marriage to a guy from the neighborhood, hoping he'll change one day. In the interim, she shows up to work with fresh bruises. Upon accepting the missing persons job, Kenzie becomes aware he's being tailed. Attempting to sneak up on his watchers, the private dick is beaten to a pulp. Calling in favors from one of several satisfied former clients in the legal or civil service fields, Kenize & Gennaro ditch their tail and track Jenna Angeline down in a boarding house near her sister's residence in the town of Wickham.The cleaning lady's story of her flight from the statehouse and the content of the "documents" she's been accused of stealing differ dramatically from what Kenzie & Gennaro's clients have told them. While Gennaro is all for phoning in Jenna's whereabouts and collecting their fee, Kenzie convinces his partner that the contents of a safe deposit box Jenna Angeline is willing to take them to are worth a look. Returning to Boston, Kenize & Gennaro discover that what Jenna is hiding has nothing to do with the anti-gang bill but if exposed, will send one of their clients to the hoosegow. The most vile gang leader in the city, Marion Socia, is willing to kill for that file and has 100 soldiers lined up waiting to take a shot at Kenzie & Gennaro. With a gang war ready to ignite, the detectives find themselves questioning their livelihoods and their relationship to each other.The novel is a lightning fast read with writing that at times seemed like either Kenzie was making light of Philip Marlowe, or Lehane was riffing on Raymond Chandler. Either way, it's kept breezy and light and rather than come off as jokey, seems an original voice.The day after I got my investigator's license, the church pastor, Father Drummond, asked me if I'd mind providing some security for the place. Some unfaithfuls were breaking in to steal chalices and candlesticks again, and in Pastor Drummond's words, "This shit better stop." He offered me three meals a day in the rectory, my very first case, and the thanks of God if I set up in the belfry and waited for the next break in. I told him I didn't come that cheap.I've been quick to dismiss a lot of the paperbacks I find stocked in airport bookstores, "airplane novels", and for good reason. But in spite of what a quick travel read this was, it was anything but disposable. Dennis Lehane's commitment to character and to addressing the elephant in the room -- race relations -- rather than writing pure escapism turns A Drink Before the War into a really good, sometimes great, detective novel. The sexual tension between Kenzie & Gennaro, which isn't far from Mulder & Scully on The X-Files, kept me invested even when the plot didn't. I wanted to find out what would happen to these two. While Lehane manages to give the warring gang leaders and even the politicians some humanity, the car chases and shootouts were nothing I hadn't seen before and the action sequences didn't excite me. Kenzie staring at Gennaro and realizing how she makes him feel did excite me.I give Lehane props for confronting racism in his hometown, Boston not the most progressive urban area when it comes to white people and black people getting along. For a debut novel, the degree of difficulty here was intense. Lehane puts the word "nigger" into the mouths of not only the rednecks at the bar, but at one point, has one of his detectives use it as well. He doesn't play it safe. Each character gets their moment to reflect on how they feel about their neighbors and while it's rough and ugly, it is honest, and lends the novel a toughness I likedGood news: To date, Lehane has published six novels in this series. I'm looking forward to continuing them.Actor Ben Affleck, who grew up in Boston, adapted the screenplay for Gone, Baby, Gone (Kenzie & Gennaro #4) and chose to make it his directorial debut in 2007, with his brother Casey playing Patrick Kenzie and Michelle Monaghan playing Angie Gennaro in casting that couldn't have been more faithful to the source material.
Do You like book A Drink Before The War (2003)?
After reading "Shutter Island", which I liked, (with reservations that have grown in hindsight), and having seen the film "Mystic River", which I also liked, I decided to hunt down some of Dennis Lehane's other novels. "A Drink Before The war" is Lehane's first novel and is proof that a writer gets better with experience, (though they do have a ceiling and Lehanes is a low one). Let me explain; While Shutter Island had an interesting plot with clever twists, an interesting lead character, and a well written phrase every few pages it suffered with generic dialogue. The plot was developed solidly enough to overcome the books flaws though. The same can not be said of "A Drink Before The War". Lehane's star characters, two private investigators named Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro made their debuts here and I simply do not understand how either was found interesting enough by the publisher to warrant sequels. I suppose the nature of the publishing industry is every writer has to have recurring characters, even when they are as insipid as these two. Kenzie is completely generic as the wise guy P.I. and the only distinguishing characteristic for Gennaro is that she is an abused spouse. There is the typical sexual tension between the detectives but none of the charm and humor that made that so entertaining in "Moonlighting" with Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepard. While reading Shutter Island I did have a nagging unvoiced complaint. I felt that the dialogue could have been better. It wasn't so bad as to distract from the story though. The dialogue in Lehanes debut novel is so cliched it overwhelms the already weak plot. Honestly, it is full of "groan-out-loud" CONVERSATIONS. Not a line here and there but entire exchanges between characters. One cliche after another. So many, so often it left me wondering if Lehane lacks self-awareness at all. I also wondered if he is surrounded by "yes-people" that never tell him the truth. The cliches are most noticeable whenever Lehane attempts to portray his characters as witty or sharing chemistry. The plot itself concerns incriminating material, powerful politicians, street gangs, and, well, I suppose, on the chance one might still want to read the book I should not say more about the plot. One other thing that bothers me about Lehane is his emphasis on race both here and, to a lesser degree, in Shutter Island. It comes across as, and I know this is speculation, but it is my review, Lehane might think it makes him edgy but to me it is just more generic cliches trying to pass itself off as some kind of enlightenment. Bah. I think I have had enough of Mr.Lehane. Hollywood seems to be able to make his novels worth watching and the ones I've read could benefit from a few rewrites themselves.
—Carolyn
Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro are PIs who have been hired to find a woman believed to have stolen some possibly incriminating documents from a government official. Finding the woman is easy, but when she is gunned down in the middle of the street before Kenzie’s eyes (and before the documents have been recovered) the case gets a LOT more complicated.Dennis Lehane where have you been all my life????? If you think I’m going soft with two 5-Star ratings within a couple of weeks, you’re mistaken. Lehane writes THE quintessential crime thriller with “A Drink Before the War”. It has everything needed to make a great mystery novel – dirty politicians, gang violence, prostitution/drug ring, underlying racial tensions, ghosts from the past, I mean EVERYTHING. Patrick Kenzie is a character you just can’t help but immediately fall in love with and Angie is a perfect counterpart. Lehane’s timing is absolutely impeccable – he balances the most serious situations with quick humor to soften the blow before the darkness reaches a point of no return. He is also smart enough to write a novel of just the right length. I never found myself zoning out or wandering off while reading – the pace was spot on and the editing superb. If you are a lover of the crime thriller series, Kenzie & Gennaro should not be skipped.
—Kelly (and the Book Boar)
I watched and then read Mystic River several years ago and was impressed, but for some reason never started on the Kinzie/Gennaro P.I. series. Thinking it was time to rectify that oversight, I saw there were several available on Scribd, the ebook subscription service, for which I had a thirty-day trial. (This is not a commercial, but if you read a lot of ebooks Oyster and Scribd are worth a look.) I also had the first in the series, A Drink Before the War, from Audible read by Jonathan Davis)I read several reviews on Amazon, and there were the usual carping from those who demand perfect accuracy regarding historical references and, of course, a couple who refuse to read further as soon as they get some reference to a gun that might have the color of the barrel wrong or some such thing and the others who faint at the first sexual innuendo. My standards are a bit less prosaic. All I look for in a fictional P.I. series are interesting characters, a reasonable amount of verisimilitude in the way people behave, and respectable writing. When I need information I’ll read history and for superb language there’s always Faulkner. LeHane more than meets those standards. It a good story that sets the stage nicely for future novels in the series and suitably noir. Gennaro and Kinzie have been hired by some politicians to find a cleaning lady who disappeared and had made off with some important “documents.” Turns out (no surprise) the documents have nothing to do with a pending bill and the two partners have to make some decisions as to the trajectory of their investigation.I recommend reading the series in order. This first in the series has a lot of back story in the dysfunctional relationships Patrick and Angie had with their father and spouse respectively. Looking forward to reading more.
—Eric_W
