A Drink Before the War

How can this be my first Dennis Lehane book? How did I miss someone who writes like this?

I went into the book in complete ignorance because I liked the title.

I was immediately impressed by a new style of hard-boiled PI that mixes swagger with self-deprecation, reluctant empathy and hate-driven violence.

My only point of confusion was why the author had set this piece of edgy, I'm-self-confident as long as I don't think about it or the dreams don't get me, noir. in the 1990s. It took me ages to realise it was PUBLISHED in the 1990s.

"A Drink Before The War" is set in 1990s Boston and is wrapped around a plot involving corrupt politicians covering up the truth about the worthless excuses for human beings that they are, gang warfare, show more blackmail and multiple attempts on the lives of our two PIs.

The novel is powered by two challenging themes that feel contemporary: racial hatred as an unchangeable reality and the violence of abusive fathers and husbands. These two themes are braided together to explore what happens to the powerless when love and violence are twisted around one another and the corrosive effect long-harboured hate has on our ability to be human.

I admired Lehane's ability to provide a bold and ballsy shell for the two PIs while still letting us see the doubts and hatreds that eat at them. There's no preaching here, no moralising. This is not a discussion of issues and options, it's an up close and personal look at the consequences of abuse and hate, the hard choices they face us with and how much it costs us to make the right call.

The story is told mainly from Kenzie's point of view, so it's his head we get to crawl inside, his nightmares we share and his history that we discover, but Gennaro, his tough, competent, friends-since-childhood female partner is also well drawn. She is married to a man who beats her, has a partner who is constantly trying to woo her, is half the size of people trying to kill her and is still the most grounded and determined of the two PIs.

The plot twists but doesn't cheat. The setting feels authentic. The dialogue is sharp without becoming mannered, The violence is disturbing and morally ambiguous.

This is noir at its best. I'm sorry I missed these in the 90s but the good news is that there are five more Kenzie and Gennaro books in print so this year I'm going to enjoy catching up. show less

Wow. If you're looking for a lighthearted romp of a mystery like a Peter Wimsey or a Nero Wolfe, stay far away from this novel. But if you want great writing, a completely gripping plot, fantastic main characters, and chilling villains, and can handle significant amounts of unpleasantness, pick this up. I started this with breakfast on Sunday and finished it (at 2am!) on Monday morning, because it was so hard to put down. I am so reading the rest of this series when I get my hands on them.

First in the Kenzie/Gennaro series.

Parick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro are a private detective firm located in the working class area of Dorchester in south Boston. Weaned on the streets and culture of the Irish and Italians who are the largest ethnic groups in the area, Kenzie and Gennaro are highly intelligent, extremely good at their work, tough, and above all, knowledgeable about how Boston in general and their subculture in particular works.

So when a powerful politician gives them a seemingly trivial job—recovering some stolen documents from a missing black cleaning woman—Gennaro and Kenzie are, to say the least, wary.

As well they should be. This seemingly relatively innocuous job leads them into the nightmare of Boston’s gang show more warfare. Before the puzzle around the documents is solved, Kenzie and Gennaro will journey through some of the roughest territory on Boston’s streets and be forced to deal with some of the ugliest aspects of human behavior.

Everything about this book is outstanding: the plotting, the evocation of Boston’s working class neighborhoods and ambience, the characters—all of them, from protagonists to minor players—original and with distinct voices of their own, and above all, truly superior writing.

This is a superior book in any genre. Highly recommended. show less

Wow. Where was I in 1994 that I missed this? A Drink Before the War is a whiplash-inducing take on gang warfare, dirty politics and the things done to survive in an evil, uncaring world. The characters are fantastic, the plot moves along quickly, the violence is real, and the book takes on hard issues of race and race relations without wrapping things up in a pretty, but false, bow at the end. I'm definitely moving the rest of the series up on my list of books to read!

Dennis Lehane’s [A Drink before the War], introduces Patrck Kenzie and Angie Gennaro, private investigators in the under-belly of Boston. Kenzie operates out of a church belfry, the missing bell a mystery he can’t solve for fear of displacing his office. Angie, his partner in the business and a child-hood friend, regularly shows up to work sporting evidence of her husband’s brutal jealousy. When they take on a simple skip-trace on a politician’s office janitor, they stumble into a political corruption case and a gang war.

Lehane is clearly Dasheill Hammet or Mickey Spillane’s long lost child, the modern-day noir master. The tone and the nature of the characters fit perfectly into the molds established by the masters of the show more genre before it became passé. And Lehane comments on the racial and economic politics in the interactions of his characters with a rare, if dangerous, frankness that echoes the moral ambiguity of most noir fiction.

Bottom Line: A wonderful modern-noir mystery that takes on the difficulties of modern civilization in an honest way. A compelling introduction to Lehane’s mystery series.

Five bones!!!!! show less

I ended up reading this one in one sitting, loved the first person point of view with Kenzie. It has that gritty detective stylish vibe, but instead of Kensey being so tough it's unrealistic, he admits he carries the larger magnum 44 because he's a poor shot and can't aim well under pressure. I don't feel like I got to know Gennaro as much, she is less fleshed out and more of a sidekick and supporting role at this point. It's not because the book doesn't take place from her point of view since Lehane does his typical stellar job of fleshing out the other side characters expertly well. The aim seems to be on sexual tension and eventual romance (?) while she deals with the dark days of her doomed and abusive marriage.

Speaking of side show more characters, they pile on the worthiness. The lawyer pal gets only short scenes but is likeable and comes across "real" with such short page time; Bubba is a what-on-earth to where he felt too out there but I gave a gasp of dismay at one point in worry; cops Dennis and Oscar and of course his reporter pal --- but the scary filling is tucked into the meat of the villains --- and villains they are. Yech.

Race relations are huge in this one, really a little too much so, but the point of this may me missed by me to a degree since I don't live in that area. Boston becomes a character of its own filled with potent ambience, politics, crime-ridden streets and the racial divide.

The mystery unfolds with some ease a bit conveniently on the side of the detectives and the stakes remain high - sometimes a little unrealistically so - but the disturbing violence is smoothed with some humor, realistic character quirkiness, and Lehane's talented writing style. For a debut book especially, this was smashing. Glad I ordered several in the series in paperback form. show less

A Drink Before the War se publicó en el 1994 y tiene como protagonistas a Patrick Kenzie y Angela Gennaro, dos investigadores privados en el área pobre de la ciudad de Dorchester, Boston.

El libro abre con Kenzie, quien se reúne con tres políticos quienes le ofrecen un trabajo sencillo: encontrar a una mujer de color que trabajaba para ellos como servicio de limpieza. Con la desaparición de la mujer desaparecieron también unos documentos, los políticos no creen que sea coincidencia.

Luego sabremos que el extravío de los documentos no fue un robo ordinario, mas un grito de justicia, un evento que desencadenará una lucha entre dos fuerzas. Una guerra.

“There’s a bar around the corner. Lemme buy you a drink before the war.”

Debo show more admitir que la premisa no es cautivadora a primera impresión, se me hace difícil pensar en alguien que quiera leer este libro tomando como base el argumento que se deja leer en la contraportada, pero me siento afortunado de tomar A Drink Before the War en mis manos y empezar la serie de Kenzie y Gennaro.

Ambos son inteligentes, hábiles para responder, con un sentido del humor marcado y con una perspectiva única. Mientras la trama avanza, tendremos pinceladas sobre el padre abusivo de Kenzie. Angela es abusada también, pero en el presente, por su esposo. Y, por supuesto, ambos se atraen con latencia, pero se respetan y mantienen esa fina pared a un margen considerable.

Así describe Kenzie a Angela en un pasaje.

“…and eyes the color of melting caramel. Eyes you’d dive into without a look back.”

Y así, después de un abrazo:

"She felt like everything good. She felt like the first warm gust of spring and Saturday afternoons when you’re ten years old and early summer evenings on the beach when the sand is cool and the waves are colored scotch. Her grip was fierce, her body full and soft, and her heart beat rapidly against my bare chest. I could smell her shampoo and feel the downy nape of her neck against my chin."

No cabe duda de que la escritura de Dennis Lehane es de mis favoritas, por lo que me encantaría que publicase con más frecuencia. No soy un lector rápido, pero su 'adictiva escritura' me hizo devorar el libro en un puñado de días.

A Drink Before the War está escrito en primera persona, desde el punto de vista de Kenzie y, como dije, su sentido del humor acapara gran parte de sus diálogos y su perspectiva de las cosas es bastante interesante.

La novela toca algunos temas sensibles, tiene marcada violencia en algunas de sus escenas y es una novela, en general, oscura. De más está decir que el género es crimen negro o noir.

En pocas palabras: me encantó este libro. Es una entrada magnífica al mundo de K&G y ya tengo en las manos la siguiente novela, "Darkness, Take My Hand", que tiene un argumento más interesante, es un poco más extenso y promete más de este intrigante dúo.

"Once that ugliness has been forced into you, it becomes part of your blood, dilutes it, race 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. All you can hope to do is control it, to force it all into one tight ball in one tight place and keep it there, a constant weight." show less