A Drink Before the War (Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro Book 1) Kindle Edition

A friend recommended this book to me, and it marks the first time I've ever read Dennis Lehane.For some reason, I envisioned this book involving some kind of international war and intelligence officers, but that's not the case at all. The title actually refers to a gang war breaking out in the Boston area. Patrick Kenzie is a PI hired to find a missing woman who has stolen documents from an important politician. Those documents are fueling the gang war, and Kenzie has found himself right in the middle of it all.The book takes place in the early 1990s, which is very apparent due to  several references to music, TV, and major news events of that era. Kenzie, the PI, narrates the book and at times I found his internal dialogue cliched and trying too hard to be clever. I found the first half of the book a bit of a struggle to read because there isn't much character development--it just keeps plugging away at the plot. Eventually the suspense of the story gripped me and I finished the last half of the book quickly, but I can't say I ever connected with Kenzie or his partner, Angela Gennaro, on a personal level.If you read this--be warned. The book fully embraces the racial tension that existed in Boston in the 1990s. The language is harsh, the characters are harsh, and the depictions are harsh. Some may find this "realistic," but, in this day and age, it was deeply uncomfortable to read. On the one hand, I have to give Lehane credit for not shying away from his characters' racism. On the other, some of the characters seemed overtly stereotypical.I asked my friend for a quick, action-packed read, and A Drink Before the War definitely fits the bill. I was surprised to discover several other titles by Lehane that I recognized such as Shutter Island, Live By Night, Mystic River, and Gone, Baby, Gone.

I am starting to think I will never again read a first novel by any author. My recent experiences with this book, Jack Carr's first novel, and Daniel Silva's first adventure have scarred me. (I'm so happy I read Silva's Gabriel Allon series first.) After reading and enjoying many Dennis Lehane novels, I purchased this, his first effort. It is kind of awful: cartoonish, over-the-top violent, and simplistically plotted. After the Coughlin series and Shutter Island, I was roundly disappointed.

I heard good things and came to Kenzie-Gennaro series (this is the first) with high expectations. I found the book to be very readable. The story was fine, could've been about anything. I saw the key plot twists coming a mile away. It's really about the main characters, the evolution of their relationship. Kenzie is a relatable narrator, uses lots of cheesy detective cliches. His partner Gennaro's combo of terrific good looks and street smarts and her victimhood, I didn't think it all added up, and found her not at all believable, but didn't really mind- it's just breezy pulp fiction. I'll probably read another of these books at some point, but not urgently, or with the same high expectations I brought to this one.

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.

I came here from the Coughlin series. While I wasn't as wowed by this first Kenzie and Gennero offering, I did enjoy Lehane's fluid prose. His storytelling is spectacular, even if the story isn't one I really enjoyed. I'm not sure if I like Patrick Kenzie as a character. And that is a problem, since I wanted to read each novel in this series. I understand there's a history with the guy, his father, his neighborhood, the lines that separate dark and light Dorchester. Yet, I don't know if that's enough to excuse the novel's nature. Or the lens through which Lehane records Roland and Socia. I'm hoping I enjoy book two more. Not a bad read. Just not my scene. Or maybe, a mastery like the Coughlin series is just to great in comparison.

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.

I first read this book about 20 years ago and became a convinced Dennis Lehane fan. As a preview of what was to come "A Drink Before The War" is a great introduction to one of America's finest writers.The book captures the racial tension of 90's inner city America along with the simmering tensions and lack of horizons of the working class inner city suburbs. It also shows how graft and corruption become the currency of local politics.The story follows the efforts of Kenzie and Gennaro to recover missing documents belonging to a local politician, whilst avoiding being a casualty in a local gang war and whilst that may sound like a synopsis of numerous other crime novels, "A Drink Before The War" is far from a run of the mill private detective story. Read and enjoy and if you have yet to read a Dennis Lehane novel then you will also discover a fine writer.

This fall's into the 'rupping yarn' category. People in shopping malls fight out a gang fight with sub machine guns. The good guys are always forgiven by their police friends and go on to fight another day. The plot is good, but the action is over the top. I wouldn't like to live in the same town; there would be bullet holes in my car and property. The jokes are also luke warm. I read it, but you have to suspend your belief of real life.

Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro are Boston private investigators operating out of an office in a church belfry in Dorchester. They get hired to undertake a seemingly easy case from three Massachusetts politicians: find a former cleaning woman who has stolen some sensitive documents from them. Of course the case turns out to be considerably less straightforward and vastly more dangerous than it initially appears.This is the first of the celebrated Kenzie/Gennaro series and its voice, and that of Patrick, the narrator, is noticeably younger, certainly more wise-ass, that later novels of this series and later of Lehane's other novels. In spite of this the novel offers a serious consideration of racial tensions in the Boston of the early 1990s in the guise of a very satisfying crime thriller. Typical of Lehane's work it is run through with a strong sense of place and a Greene Catholic sensibility contemplating right, wrong and trying to discern the lesser of the evils in the midst of the routinised violence of poverty and criminal activity.

The first book I read by Dennis Lehane was Live By Night. It was a brilliant read and I wanted to read more by him. I heard about this series, and I've seen the movie version of Gone Baby Gone, and I decided to give it a try. I'm so glad that I did, as it was the best book I've read in years. It was smart, dark, witty and shocking. All you could want in a mystery novel. It has two very relatable characters, sinister villains and gritty, bloody action. I read it in two days, even though I was at work for most of the day, and I ordered the second book before I even finished the first. I'll most likely read all of them one after the other. Absolutely brilliant.