Lehane and his wife Sheila were in Seattle recently for a friend's wedding. Lehane is eager to point out the similarity between the role of the demoniacal mastermind and his own role as the author. Most of these stories feature an evil mastermind whom Kenzie and Angie must outwit and overpower. They are set in a down-at-heel Irish neighborhood that no longer exists quite as Lehane portrays it and his characters can wreak more violence in one chapter than the real city of Boston is likely to see in a year. His books are fiction in every sense of the word. Lehane has no background in police work or private investigation and is not particularly interested in the tradition of the police procedural. Angie has struggled for years to break free from an abusive marriage and has mixed feelings about her brief romantic relationship with Kenzie. She's tough and courageous in the pursuit of homicidal psychopaths and twisted minds. He still lives and works in the neighborhood (the Irish stronghold of Dorchester) where he grew up alongside Angie and Bubba Rogowski, their larger-than-life sidekick and hit-man.Īngie is practical, passionate and somewhat inscrutable. At first glance, Kenzie is a classic hard-boiled detective, an idealistic man who feels trapped and angry - perhaps because of emotional scars left by his brutal father. His main characters, private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro, transcend crime fiction stereotypes. Lehane knows Boston and its denizens, and he captures the city's subcultures beautifully - from the hushed refinement of the old-money suburbs to the grittiness of tacky motels and bail-bond agencies. Even in their goriest moments, his books are grounded in rich, real-life detail. The 33-year-old Lehane writes satisfyingly complex and disturbingly violent crime fiction that often crosses into thriller territory. His latest, Prayers for Rain, is among the titles that First Mystery Fan Bill Clinton has with him this week on his summer vacation. His first book, A Drink Before the War (1994), won a Shamus Award for Best First Novel. A master's of fine arts program in creative writing (at Florida International University) honed his skills as a short-story author, yet he has made his name as a novelist, returning to his blue-collar roots for the material that has fueled a five-installment crime fiction series. And my view of life is that it's both."ĭennis Lehane is an engaging man, given to laughter, yet with turns of phrase and a tendency to make impatient, flat statements that hint, along with a South Boston accent, at his upbringing in a pretty tough neighborhood. I was never happy with that, because I couldn't meld the two. "I found that I could write two kinds of short stories: I could write very absurd, kind of surrealistic, funny stories or I could write very dark, realistic - hyper-realistic - stories.
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