Books by Dennis Lehane
Small Mercies
by Dennis Lehane
☆ Shortlisted for the 2024 CWA Gold Dagger
Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane is the heart-breaking story of Mary Pat Fennessy, a tough 42-year-old from Southie in Boston. The book is set in 1974, after a Massachusetts court ruled that Boston's public schools should integrate segregated communities through busing, and violence broke out. Lehane's writing makes you feel like you're there, experiencing that hot summer half a century ago, as Mary Pat searches for her missing daughter.
“This is the best non-Swedish crime book I have ever read. It has the same ingredients as his other more serial-like books – the surprising end and the language. He is someone I really admire because he writes the almost complete crime..It has characters I believe in, there is good writing and it has an ending which I didn’t see coming. So for me that was perfect. He takes me by the hand and he leads me through the story as a storyteller should.” Read more...
“I love this book; this really is a thriller, and a beautifully written one. For me, Dennis Lehane is one of the best American thriller writers alive today. This is one of his early books from his Kenzie and Gennaro series – a male and female partnership of private investigators based in Boston. He wrote five books featuring them in the 1990s. They are very much fast-paced books with a lot of action. Gone Baby Gone is the fourth in the series and to me the best. They made it into a film which had great reviews. It’s about the disappearance of a four-year-old girl who’s abducted from a house without a trace. After the police search reveals nothing her uncle and aunt hire Kenzie and Gennaro to try and find the little girl. It all takes place over about a year but the tension is really built up.” Read more...
Simon Kernick, Thriller and Crime Writer
Interviews where books by Dennis Lehane were recommended
The Best Thrillers, recommended by Simon Kernick
Plot is king, says bestselling thriller writer Simon Kernick of his chosen genre. He lists five of his all-time favourites
Irvine Welsh recommends the best Crime Novels
We learn much more from failure than we do from success, says Irvine Welsh. The author of Trainspotting recommends his own favourite crime novels.
The best books on Swedish Crime Writing, recommended by Anders Roslund and Börge Hellström
The celebrated Swedish crime-writing duo take turns to recommend gripping and grisly Scandinavian thrillers, as well as to tell us about visiting prison – and being in it
