A Drink Before the War: A Novel (Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro Series, 1) Paperback – April 26, 2011

Lehane’s Kenzie and Gennero series is so underrated it’s criminal and readers need to know what they’re missing here. These books are not for the faint of heart. This is gritty, dark, crime noire at it’s finest and some of the subject matter will shock.This series one of my all-time favorite things. Not all-time favorite books but literally something I genuinely love. Patrick and Angie are fantastic characters: smart, tough, funny and real. And while their adventures are perfect reads, equal parts intriguing, suspenseful and at times devastating, the characters themselves are the kind I adore: they could be real people.Many writers can build worlds, tell a story and create suspense but many struggle create characters who come alive off of the page. Crafting true-to-life people and then maintaining them through extraordinary situations is an incredible talent.They’re a pair of private investigators born and bred in working-class Boston, lifelong friends who started their own agency and work out of the belfry of the neighborhood church in exchange for providing security. This case seems innocuous at first: a low-level employee vanishes the same day sensitive documents disappear. A critical vote looms and this looks like an amateur extortion attempt but things quickly take an unexpected turn. From the state capitol building to some of the most dangerous streets in the nation, the action never stops.Patrick Kenzie is a witty, sarcastic player still struggling to overcome his violently abusive childhood and the ghost of his monstrous father while embracing a violent, thankless profession. Angela Gennaro is sassy, brave and strong in every aspect of her life but her Achilles heel is Phil, her abusive drunk of a husband who routinely beats her to a pulp.Lehane does a great job showing us the complexities of their psyches and expertly paints a picture of moral relativity in a corrupt world through this tale of political corruption and organized crime, by touching on the state of race relations in 1990’s America and the powerlessness of the average citizen.This is a book you can’t put down and it will leave you wanting more.

The private eye field has become so crowded that it is getting increasingly difficult to develop fresh ideas and characters while remaining true to the more attractive conventions of the genre. With A Drink Before the War, Dennis Lehane has not only managed to accomplish this, but he has done so in Boston - a territory previously staked out by Robert B. Parker's venerable gumshoe, Spenser.In this first novel, we meet the protagonists, Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, partners in a private investigation outfit that operates out of the bell tower at St. Bartholomew's Church. As a PI should be, they are both smart and tough, having been raised hard on the streets of working-class Dorchester. When they are hired by group of powerful local politicians to find a cleaning lady who has stolen some sensitive "documents," Kenzie and Gennaro find her easily, and the case appears to be a slam dunk. It isn't, of course, and like most of our favorite private eyes, Kenzie and Gennaro possess a strong moral compass that prevents them from simply reporting their findings and cashing the check. This characteristic, while admirable, sometimes works to their detriment. Such is the case here, as the two PIs are dragged into a teeming morass of sexual deviancy, blackmail, and of course, murder.Much of the classic PI stuff will be found here - vividly descriptive writing; witty, intelligent narration; snappy banter, and some unforgettable characters. Lehane has fallen into the increasingly common trap of a character we'll refer to as the "homicidal sidekick." You know who I'm talking about - the guy who loves our hero, hates the cops, and is deadly enough to scare even the toughest men on the street. Spenser has Hawk; Elvis Cole has Joe Pike; Burke has Max the Silent; and so on, and so forth. Kenzie and Gennaro have Bubba Rogowski. He can barely read or write, he's racist, and he hates nearly everyone but Kenzie and Gennaro. Somehow, though, Lehane manages to make Bubba likeable, so we'll forgive him for this transgression.Lehane, author of Mystic River, is a fairly young author, but he quickly establishes himself as a force to be reckoned with in this impressive first novel. If you like your detective stories - especially if you like them dark - you'll love A Drink Before the War.

This is a pretty good debut novel authored by a very good author. The novel was published in 1994, and set in Boston. It is a dark, tough modern noir novel. There is some extreme physical and sexual violence. There is also a good deal of cynicism exhibited by most of the primary characters. The novel is of medium length. The text is mostly clearly written and easily followed. As such it makes for a good audiobook. I listened and read simultaneously on kindle.This is the first Dennis Lehane novel that I have read. I wanted to read his debut novel. I like to read some modern American Noir, but I am hoping that some of his other novels are other than noir. Although this is a pretty decent debut novel, this is not a novel I would choose to read a second time without specific cause. Thank You for taking the time to read this review.

Very exciting first novel pairing private eyes Kenzie and Gennaro. Lots of car chaes and politics. Violence only where it happened in the plot not gratuitous.What a great writer who has a gift for descriptions and dialogue.A keeper and a classic.

Acción trepidantes, tiros líos y cosa golda, algunas cuantas reflexiones también sobre las cuestiones raciales y esas cosas en la Boston de los noventa, pero todo eso palidece ante la tensión sexual no resuelta entre los protagonistas, los pechos de ella que tocan pero no se ven, el alzamiento constante de él que no obtiene liberación. En fin, uno termina con un palazo de aquellos.

Thanks to the modern miracle of all-but-free television streaming services, I recently re-watched Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone in a kind of a two-and-a half-hour sub-binge, reminding me of my love for Dennis Lehane before he went all historical. This done, I had to re-read some classic Lehane too, and my mind immediately jumped to the least familiar, and his first novel, 1994’s A Drink Before the War. It’s in its own way a deeply political book, with race and class writ large throughout, and a spattering of the more personally political themes of domestic violence passed down through the generations, and the sour acrid taste of the American dream in the throats of those left behind by the rat race, or who are simply unable to compete. But don’t let that put you off, pulp fans, because all of this is wrapped up in real a juggernaut of a plot, some sparkling dialogue, an immense body count, and a myriad of twists and turns. It’s also – borrowed from Sinead O’Connor – one of the most kickass titles ever. It is somewhat to my shame that I now picture in my head Lehane’s not-quite-anti-hero Patrick Kenzie always as Casey Affleck, because of the movie of Gone Baby Gone, delayed for release for a year in the UK due to its similarity and chronological proximity to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Kenzie of the novels is six feet tall, Affleck a bit shorter, but no matter – there are worse habits than this, I’m sure, many of them detailed in the novel itself.Together with his private detective partner and on/off love interest Angie Gennaro, Kenzie is contracted by a couple of Boston political bigwigs to apprehend Jenna Angeline, a cleaning woman from the state house, who they claim has absconded with some unspecified legal documents. The initial scene where this meeting happens seems a little clunky at first, not quite what we’re used to from Lehane, but A Drink before the War soon picks up pace and pep, and doesn’t disappoint. Kenzie’s occasional innate, intellectually lazy working class racism, in a city still de facto segregated along race lines, is explored ruthlessly, often palpably, and at times it becomes full blown and cringeworthy (particularly, from an historical distance, his ruminating on the then-recent Central Park jogger case and the boys wrongfully committed of that rape and assault, who he derides as animals). Kenzie does, however, in his more lucid moments, acknowledge the historical trajectory that’s brought us to here, the ternal war between the haves and have nots, concluding that violence is violence whether committed to protect street gang territory or via legislation, but his intermittent rage certainly adds to the overall power of the writing. The Kenzie and Gennaro novels are largely set in Dorchester and Southie, the very real white working-class districts of Boston where Lehane grew up, and this is where his writing really shines. But enough of all that, and on with the plot.Without giving too much more away, Kenzie and Gennaro immediately show us what efficient private dicks they are, tracking down Jenna in no short order. What they find makes it clear that the documents are not quite what they seem, that there are dirty and compromised hands bumping fists behind the scenes, and then the action really starts to pick up, and the bodies begin to fall. Those documents will eventually trigger a gang war, hence the title, with the cops assigned to police the territory in question as cynical and morally pliable as ever, yet still unable to hold a candle to the boys at city hall. Any reader new to this series of white-knuckle mysteries is in for a thrill-packed chucklefest and a treat. Four stars, but only because the best is yet to come.

First of all, I loved this book seriously...If you are a newbie on crime genre then you should grab this one, same goes for the old folks; this book is engaging and storytelling is awesome in it... Must read, must read must read...

Great book! Loved it! My first Lehane book and I couldn’t stop reading it once I started. Can’t wait to read another of his titles