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Dennis Lehane is an American screenwriter, producer, and New York Times and International bestselling author of mystery, thriller and historical fiction novels.

Born and raised in Dorchester, Massachusetts, he attended Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida, where he ignited his love for writing, and Florida International University in Miami, where he did a graduate program in creative writing.

His debut novel A Drink Before the War (1994), won the Shamus Award, while the New York Times bestseller Mystic River (2001) was not only adapted into motion pictures, but also won an Academy Award.

Other novels adapted into film include: Live by Night, Mystic River, Gone, Baby, Gone, and Shutter Island–with Lehane himself adapting The Drop into a film.

His books have been translated into more than 30 languages, becoming international bestsellers.

Lehane currently lives in California with his family.

More about Dennis Lehane

Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Thriller

Born: 1965

United States

Website: https://dennislehane.com/

Non Series

  • Mystic River (2001)
  • Shutter Island (2003)
  • The Drop (2014)
  • Since We Fell (2017)
  • Small Mercies (2023)

Anthologies

  1. The Mighty Johns and Other Stories (2002)
  2. The Best American Mystery Stories 2010 (2010)
  3. Mystery Writers of America Presents Vengeance (2012)
  4. In Pursuit of Spenser: Mystery Writers on Robert B. Parker and the Creation of an American Hero (2012)
  5. FaceOff (2014)
  6. Trouble in the Heartland (2014)
  7. The Best American Mystery Stories 2015 (2015)
  8. Exit Wounds: Nineteen Tales of Mystery from the Modern Masters of Crime (2019)

Akashic Noir (Edited by Dennis Lehane)

  1. Boston Noir (2009)
  2. Boston Noir 2 (2012)
  3. Boston Noir / Boston Noir 2 (2015)

Collections

  1. Coronado (2006)

Coughlin

  1. The Given Day (2008)
  2. Live by Night (2012)
  3. World Gone By (2015)

Art Books

  1. Shutter Island Graphic Novel (2003)

Kenzie and Gennaro

  1. A Drink before the War (1994)
  2. Darkness, Take My Hand (1996)
  3. Sacred (1997)
  4. Gone, Baby, Gone (1998)
  5. Prayers for Rain (1999)
  6. Moonlight Mile (2010)

Novellas

  1. Red Eye: Patrick Kenzie vs. Harry Bosch (2014)

Omnibus Books

  1. Sacred / Gone Baby Gone / Prayers for Rain (2002)
  2. A Drink Before the War / Darkness, Take My Hand (2007)
Collections

Detailed book overview

Non Series

Mystic River

When they were children, Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus, and Dave Boyle were friends. But then a strange car pulled up to their street. One boy got into the car, two did not, and something terrible happened - something that ended their friendship and changed all three boys forever.

Twenty-five years later, Sean is a homicide detective. Jimmy is an ex-con who owns a corner store. And Dave is trying to hold his marriage together and keep his demons at bay - demons that urge him to do terrible things.

When Jimmy's daughter is found murdered, Sean is assigned to the case. His investigation brings him into conflict with Jimmy, who finds his old criminal impulses tempt him to solve the crime with brutal justice. And then there is Dave, who came home the night Jimmy's daughter died covered in someone else's blood.

Mystic River
Director: Clint Eastwood
Cast: Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, Marcia Gay Harden, Laura Linney, Emmy Rossum
Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 2001
ISBN: 978-0060584757
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Shutter Island

The year is 1954. U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his new partner, Chuck Aule, have come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane, to investigate the disappearance of a patient. Multiple murderess Rachel Solando is loose somewhere on this remote and barren island, despite having been kept in a locked cell under constant surveillance.

As a killer hurricane relentlessly bears down on them, a strange case takes on even darker, more sinister shades—with hints of radical experimentation, horrifying surgeries, and lethal countermoves made in the cause of a covert shadow war.

No one is going to escape Shutter Island unscathed, because nothing at Ashecliffe Hospital is what it seems. But then neither is Teddy Daniels

Shutter Island
Director: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, Max von Sydow
Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 2003
ISBN: 978-0061898815
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
The Drop

Two days after Christmas, Bob Saginowski, a lonely bartender looking for a reason to live, rescues an abused and abandoned pit bull puppy from a trash can and meets a damaged woman named Nadia Dunn looking for something to believe in.

As their relationship grows, they cross paths with the Chechen mafia, who have taken over his cousin Marv’s bar and use it as a money drop; Marv himself, who has grown dangerously desperate with age and thwarted hopes; two hapless stick-up artists who make the mistake of robbing the bar; a very curious cop; and the original owner of the puppy, a psycho named Eric Deeds, who wants his dog back...

The Drop
Director: Michaël R. Roskam
Cast: Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, James Gandolfini, Matthias Schoenaerts
Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 2014
ISBN: 978-0063084896
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Since We Fell

Since We Fell follows Rachel Childs, a former journalist who, after an on-air mental breakdown, now lives as a virtual shut-in.

In all other respects, however, she enjoys an ideal life with an ideal husband. Until a chance encounter on a rainy afternoon causes that ideal life to fray. As does Rachel’s marriage. As does Rachel herself. Sucked into a conspiracy thick with deception, violence, and possibly madness, Rachel must find the strength within herself to conquer unimaginable fears and mind-altering truths.

By turns heart- breaking, suspenseful, romantic, and sophisticated, Since We Fell is a novel of profound psychological insight and tension. It is Dennis Lehane at his very best.

Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 2017
ISBN: 978-0062129390
Publisher: Ecco
Small Mercies

In the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessy is trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in the housing projects of “Southie,” the Irish American enclave that stubbornly adheres to old tradition and stands proudly apart.

One night Mary Pat’s teenage daughter Jules stays out late and doesn’t come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by a subway train under mysterious circumstances.

The two events seem unconnected. But Mary Pat, propelled by a desperate search for her missing daughter, begins turning over stones best left untouched—asking questions that bother Marty Butler, chieftain of the Irish mob, and the men who work for him, men who don’t take kindly to any threat to their business.

Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 2023
ISBN: 978-0062129529
Publisher: Harper Large Print

Anthologies

The Mighty Johns and Other Stories

The original novella from David Baldacci highlights this collection of football mysteries from the greatest names in suspense. In the title thriller, college football player and physics major, Tor North investigates the mysterious unsolved disappearance of a legendary football hero from his school forty years before. Both his brains and his brawn are tested to the limit when his path leads much closer to home than he could ever have imagined. Titles from Anne Perry, Brad Meltzer, and other all-stars round out this anthology.

Contents:

The Mighty Johns / David Baldacci

The best of the rest / Otto Penzler

The Ehrengraf reverse / Lawrence Block

Semi-pro / James Crumley

A Sunday in January / Brendan DuBois

Whatever it takes to win / Tim Green

Good seats / Colin Harrison

Gone down to Corpus / Dennis Lehane

No thing / Mike Lupica

The empire strikes back / Brad Meltzer

The arcane receiver / Carol O'Connell

The end of innocence / Anne Perry

Hollywood spring and axle / Gary Phillips

Gone to the dawgs / Peter Robinson

Rumors of gravity / John Westermann

Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 2002
ISBN: 978-1893224568
Publisher: New Millenium
The Best American Mystery Stories 2010

Featuring twenty of the year's standout crime short stories handpicked by one of the world's best thriller writers, Best American Mystery Stories 2010 showcases not only the very best of the crime genre, but the best of American writing full stop. Within its pages, literary legends rub shoulders with the hottest new talent. Contributors in the past have included James Lee Burke, Jeffrey Deaver, Michael Connelly, Alice Munro and Joyce Carol Oates.

This year's guest editor is Lee Child, the creator of Jack Reacher and a simultaneous bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic.

Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 2010
ISBN: 978-0547237466
Publisher: Mariner Books
Mystery Writers of America Presents Vengeance

When a different kind of justice is needed -- swift, effective, and personal -- a new type of avenger must take action. Vengeance features new stories by bestselling crime writers including Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Dennis Lehane, and Karin Slaughter, as well as some of today's brightest rising talents.

The heroes in these stories include a cop who's seen too much, a woman who has been pushed too far, or just an ordinary person doing what the law will not. Some call them vigilantes, others claim they are just another brand of criminal.

Edited and with an introduction by Lee Child, these stories reveal the shocking consequences when men and women take the law into their own hands.

Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 2012
ISBN: 978-0857899040
Publisher: Corvus
In Pursuit of Spenser: Mystery Writers on Robert B. Parker and the Creation of an American Hero

Join award-winning mystery editor Otto Penzler and a first-rate lineup of mystery writers as they go in pursuit of Spenser and the man who created him, Robert B. Parker. These are the writers who knew Parker best professionally and personally, sharing memories of the man, reflections on his impact on the genre, and insights into what makes Spenser so beloved.

Ace Atkins, the author chosen to take up Parker’s pen and continue the Spenser series, relates the formative impact Spenser had on him as a young man; gourmet cook Lyndsay Faye describes the pleasures of Spenser’s dinner table; Lawrence Block explains the irresistibility of Parker’s literary voice; and more. In Pursuit of Spenser pays tribute to Spenser, and Parker, with affection, humor, and a deep appreciation for what both have left behind.

**Includes a reprinted piece on Spenser from Robert B. Parker

Contributors:

Ace Atkins

Lawrence Block

Reed Farrel Coleman

Max Allan Collins

Matthew Clemens

Brendan DuBois

Loren D. Estleman

Lyndsay Faye

Ed Gorman

Parnell Hall

Jeremiah Healy

Dennis Lehane

Gary Phillips

S.J. Rozan

Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 2012
ISBN: 978-1935618577
Publisher: Smart Pop
FaceOff

In an unprecedented collaboration, twenty-three of the world’s bestselling and critically acclaimed thriller writers have paired their series characters—such as Harry Bosch, Jack Reacher, and Lincoln Rhyme—in an eleven-story anthology curated by the International Thriller Writers (ITW). All of the contributors to FaceOff are ITW members and the stories feature these dynamic duos:

· Patrick Kenzie vs. Harry Bosch in “Red Eye,” by Dennis Lehane and Michael Connelly

· John Rebus vs. Roy Grace in “In the Nick of Time,” by Ian Rankin and Peter James

· Slappy the Ventriloquist Dummy vs. Aloysius Pendergast in “Gaslighted,” by R.L. Stine, Douglas Preston, and Lincoln Child

· Malachai Samuels vs. D.D. Warren in “The Laughing Buddha,” by M.J. Rose and Lisa Gardner

· Paul Madriani vs. Alexandra Cooper in “Surfing the Panther,” by Steve Martini and Linda Fairstein

· Lincoln Rhyme vs. Lucas Davenport in “Rhymes With Prey,” by Jeffery Deaver and John Sandford

· Michael Quinn vs. Repairman Jack in “Infernal Night,” by Heather Graham and F. Paul Wilson

· Sean Reilly vs. Glen Garber in “Pit Stop,” by Raymond Khoury and Linwood Barclay

· Wyatt Hunt vs. Joe Trona in “Silent Hunt,” by John Lescroart and T. Jefferson Parker

· Cotton Malone vs. Gray Pierce in “The Devil’s Bones,” by Steve Berry and James Rollins

· Jack Reacher vs. Nick Heller in “Good and Valuable Consideration,” by Lee Child and Joseph Finder

Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 2014
ISBN: 978-1476762074
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Trouble in the Heartland

Like some born killers, this pairing of crime stories and the songs of Bruce Springsteen is a natural one.

Each of the accomplished authors in this unique anthology chose a Springsteen title as a starting point, and in the criminally inclined spirit of the Boss, drove headlong to wherever that inspiration called. The destinations are as wildly diverse and far-reaching as the songs that influenced them.

Some arrive at hope and redemption; others end up smoking in a ditch. One thing’s for sure: you sign up for this ride, and Trouble in the Heartland will transport you somewhere unforgettable.

Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 2014
ISBN: 978-1939751027
Publisher: Gutter Books
The Best American Mystery Stories 2015

This anthology of 20 short stories features some of today’s best mystery authors—from Lee Child to Jeffrey Deaver and Joyce Carol Oates.

For the 2015 edition of The Best American Mystery Stories, guest editor James Patterson presents twenty tales with all the tension, drama, and visceral emotion of Oscar-worthy cinema. These stories features characters who must make desperate choices: an imaginative bank-robbing couple, a vengeful high school shooter, a lovesick heiress who will do anything for her man, and many others. In one standout entry, Michael Connelly and Dennis Lehane team up to send legendary detective Harry Bosch after a child abductor.

The Best American Mystery Stories, 2015 includes Tomiko M. Breland, Brendan DuBois, Janette Turner Hospital, Theresa E. Lehr, Doug Allyn, Andrew Bourelle, Joseph D’Agnese, Scott Grand, John M. Floyd, Steven Heighton, Richard Lange, Theresa E. Lehr, Lee Martin, and others.

Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 2015
ISBN: 978-0544526754
Publisher: Mariner Books
Exit Wounds: Nineteen Tales of Mystery from the Modern Masters of Crime

Featuring both original in-universe stories and rarely-seen reprints, this collection of nineteen masterful short stories brings together some of the genre's greatest living authors.

Tony Hill and Carol Jordan take on a delightfully twisted killer in Val McDermid's 'Happy Holidays'. In Fiona Cummin's 'Dead Weight', an overbearing mother resorts to desperate measures to keep control of her teenage daughter. And in Dean Koontz's 'Kittens', a young girl learns the truth about how her pets have been dying, and devises a horrible revenge.

Tense, twisted and disturbing, Exit Wounds is a visceral and thrilling collection showcasing the very best modern crime fiction has to offer.

Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 2019
ISBN: 978-1785659188
Publisher: Titan Books

Akashic Noir (Edited by Dennis Lehane)

Boston Noir

Brand-new stories by: Dennis Lehane, Stewart O'Nan, Patricia Powell, John Dufresne, Lynne Heitman, Don Lee, Russ Aborn, Itabari Njeri, Jim Fusilli, Brendan DuBois, and Dana Cameron.

Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, The Given Day) has proven himself to be a master of both crime fiction and literary fiction. Here, he extends his literary prowess to that of master curator. In keeping with the Akashic Noir series tradition, each story in Boston Noir is set in a different neighborhood of the city—the impressively diverse collection extends from Roxbury to Cambridge, from Southie to the Boston Harbor, and all stops in between.

Lehane's own contribution—the longest story in the volume—is set in his beloved home neighborhood of Dorchester and showcases his phenomenal ability to grip the heart, soul, and throat of the reader.

Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 2009
ISBN: 978-1933354910
Publisher: Akashic Books
Boston Noir 2

14 superior selections in this 'classics' volume in Akashic's series of regional dark crime short stories, the works of established writers that have stood the test of time.

This collection features crime stories that have already been published. But that's OK when you have the likes of Chuck Hogan, Joyce Carol Oates, Robert B. Parker, Linda Barnes, George V. Higgins, Dennis Lehane, and David Foster Wallace all under the same roof...Followers of Akashic's long-running Noir series--not to mention, of course, fans of Boston-set crime fiction--should eagerly devour this one.

Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 2012
ISBN: 978-1617751363
Publisher: Akashic Books
Boston Noir / Boston Noir 2

Boston Noir & Boston Noir 2: The Complete Set combines all twenty-five stories from best seller Boston Noir, edited by Dennis Lehane, and its sequel, Boston Noir 2: The Classics, edited by Lehane, Mary Cotton, & Jaime Clarke; featuring Lehane's own "Animal Rescue," the basis for the motion picture The Drop, and twenty-four classic noir stories set throughout Boston.

Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 2015
Ebook: B00Y79YIS0
Publisher: Akashic Books

Collections

Coronado

When it comes to contemporary crime fiction there’s no territory quite as dangerous and unpredictable as that of New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane. These five short stories and a play are Lehane at his visceral best.

In “Running Out of Dog,” a vet returning from Vietnam is asked to redirect the violent skills he learned overseas to deal with his hometown’s rampant population of strays. “ICU” follows a hunted man who finds refuge in the oddest place imaginable. Surprises await a gang of Texas high-school football jocks who lay siege to a luxury home in the suburbs in “Gone Down to Corpus.” And in “Mushrooms,” a simple theft triggers a series of murders that forces a disillusioned young girl to consider her next move. This collection also includes “Until Gwen” and its stage adaptation, Coronado, which expands on the trenchant tale of a morally bankrupt conman father, his ill-fated son, and the woman they have in common.

In Lehane’s capable hands, each story faces unflinchingly the darkest depths of the human experience—sin and redemption, loss and longing, flesh and blood—delivering a knockout punch that’ll have readers reeling.

Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 2006
ISBN: 978-0061139710
Publisher: Harper Perennial

Coughlin

The Given Day

Set in Boston at the end of the First World War, this novel unflinchingly captures the political and social unrest of a nation caught at the crossroads between past and future.

The Given Day tells the story of two families—one black, one white—swept up in a maelstrom of revolutionaries and anarchists, immigrants and ward bosses, Brahmins and ordinary citizens, all engaged in a battle for survival and power.

Danny Coughlin, the son of one of the city's most beloved and powerful police captains, joins a burgeoning union movement and the hunt for violent radicals.

Luther Laurence, on the run after a deadly confrontation with a crime boss in Tulsa, works for the Coughlin family and tries desperately to find his way home to his pregnant wife.

Here, too, are some of the most influential figures of the era—Babe Ruth; Eugene O'Neill; leftist activist Jack Reed; NAACP founder W. E. B. DuBois; Mitchell Palmer, Woodrow Wilson's ruthless Red-chasing attorney general; cunning Massachusetts governor Calvin Coolidge; and an ambitious young Department of Justice lawyer named John Hoover.

Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 2008
ISBN: 978-0062190949
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Live by Night

Boston, 1926. The '20s are roaring. Liquor is flowing, bullets are flying, and one man sets out to make his mark on the world.

Prohibition has given rise to an endless network of underground distilleries, speakeasies, gangsters, and corrupt cops. Joe Coughlin, the youngest son of a prominent Boston police captain, has long since turned his back on his strict and proper upbringing. Now having graduated from a childhood of petty theft to a career in the pay of the city's most fearsome mobsters, Joe enjoys the spoils, thrills, and notoriety of being an outlaw.

But life on the dark side carries a heavy price. In a time when ruthless men of ambition, armed with cash, illegal booze, and guns, battle for control, no one - neither family nor friend, enemy nor lover - can be trusted. Beyond money and power, even the threat of prison, one fate seems most likely for men like Joe: an early death. But until that day, he and his friends are determined to live life to the hilt.

Joe embarks on a dizzying journey up the ladder of organized crime that takes him from the flash of Jazz Age Boston to the sensual shimmer of Tampa's Latin Quarter to the sizzling streets of Cuba. Live by Night is a riveting epic layered with a diverse cast of loyal friends and callous enemies, tough rumrunners and sultry femmes fatales, Bible-quoting evangelists and cruel Klansmen, all battling for survival and their piece of the American dream.

At once a sweeping love story and a compelling saga of revenge, it is a spellbinding tour de force of betrayal and redemption, music and murder, that brings fully to life a bygone era when sin was cause for celebration and vice was a national virtue.

Live by Night
Director: Ben Affleck
Cast: Ben Affleck, Elle Fanning, Brendan Gleeson, Chris Messina, Sienna Miller, Zoe Saldana, Chris Cooper
Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 2012
ISBN: 978-0062662422
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
World Gone By

Ten years have passed since Joe Coughlin’s enemies killed his wife and destroyed his empire, and much has changed. Prohibition is dead, the world is at war again, and Joe’s son, Tomás, is growing up. Now, the former crime kingpin works as a consigliore to the Bartolo crime family, traveling between Tampa and Cuba, his wife’s homeland.

A master who moves in and out of the black, white, and Cuban underworlds, Joe effortlessly mixes with Tampa’s social elite, U.S. Naval intelligence, the Lansky-Luciano mob, and the mob-financed government of Fulgencio Batista. He has everything—money, power, a beautiful mistress, and anonymity.

But success cannot protect him from the dark truth of his past—and ultimately, the wages of a lifetime of sin will finally be paid in full.

Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 2015
ISBN: 978-0062351814
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks

Art Books

Shutter Island Graphic Novel

Dennis Lehane's masterpiece of mystery and suspense-brought to life for the first time as a graphic novel In 1954, U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his partner, Chuck Aule, are sent to Shutter Island to find a mass murderer who has escaped from Ashecliffe Hospital, a fortress-like federal institution for the criminally insane.

As an intense hurricane bears relentlessly down on the island, the marshals are forced to piece together clues to a shocking puzzle hidden within Shutter Island, taking them on a dark, twisted journey, where paranoia assumes an air of cool rationality and the line between sanity and madness disappears... Filled with his trademark grit, insight, and pathos, Shutter Island is vintage Dennis Lehane.

Now adapted for the first time as a graphic novel by internationally renowned artist Christian De Metter, this riveting story brilliantly captures our capacity for depravity and deliverance.

Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 2003
ISBN: 978-0061968570
Publisher: Tokyopop

Kenzie and Gennaro

A Drink before the War

Kenzie and Gennaro are private investigators in the blue-collar neighborhoods and ghettos of South Boston-they know it as only natives can. Working out of an old church belfry, Kenzie and Gennaro take on a seemingly simple assignment for a prominent politician: to uncover the whereabouts of Jenna Angeline, a black cleaning woman who has allegedly stolen confidential state documents.

Finding Jenna, however, is easy compared to staying alive once they've got her. The investigation escalates, implicating members of Jenna's family and rival gang leaders while uncovering extortion, assassination, and child prostitution extending from bombed-out ghetto streets to the highest levels of government.

Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 1994
ISBN: 978-0062049100
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Darkness, Take My Hand

Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro’s latest client is a prominent Boston psychiatrist, running scared from a vengeful Irish mob. The private investigators know about cold-blooded retribution. Born and bred on the mean streets of blue-collar Dorchester, they’ve seen the darkness that lives in the hearts of the unfortunate.

But an evil for which even they are unprepared is about to strike, as secrets that have long lain dormant erupt, setting off a chain of violent murders that will stain everything – including the truth.

Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 1996
ISBN: 978-0062224033
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Sacred

Dying billionaire Trevor stone hires private detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro to find his missing daughter. Grief-stricken over the death of her mother and the impending death of her father, Desiree stone has been missing for three weeks. so has the first investigator stone hired to find her: Jay Becker, Patrick’s mentor.

Patrick and Angie are led down a trail of half-truths and corruption where nothing is what it seems as the detectives travel from the windblown streets of Boston to the sizzling beaches of Florida’s Gulf coast. And the more Patrick and Angie discover, the more they realize that on this case any wrong step will certainly be their last...

Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 1997
ISBN: 978-0062224040
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Gone, Baby, Gone

Boston private detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro are hired to find four-year-old Amanda McCready, abducted from her bed on a warm, summer night. They meet her stoned-out, strangely apathetic mother, her loving aunt and uncle, the mother's dangerous, drug-addled friends, and two cops who've found so many abused or dead children they may be too far over the edge to come back. Despite enormous public attention, rabid news coverage, and dogged police work, the investigation repeatedly hits a brick wall.

Led into a world of drug dealers, child molesters, and merciless executioners, Patrick and Angie are soon forced to face not only the horrors adults can perpetrate on innocents but also their own conflicted feelings about what is best, and worst, when it comes to raising children. And as the Indian summer fades and the autumn chill deepens, Amanda McCready stays gone, banished so completely that she seems never to have existed.

Then another child disappears...Dennis Lehane takes you into a world of triple crosses, elaborate lies, and shrouded motives, where the villains may be more moral than the victims, the missing should possibly stay missing, and those who go looking for them may not come back alive.

Gone Baby Gone
Director: Ben Affleck
Cast: Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, John Ashton, Amy Ryan,Amy Madigan, Titus Welliver
Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 1998
ISBN: 978-0061336218
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Prayers for Rain

When Boston private investigator Patrick Kenzie meets Karen Nichols, she strikes him as an innocent from a protected upbringing. But six months later when Karen takes her own life, Patrick is left wondering what can change so drastically and so quickly that suicide seems the only option?

Through the final weeks of a stifling summer, and with the help of his ex-partner, Angela Gennaro, and his friend, the lethally unbalanced Bubba Rogowski, Patrick enters into psychological warfare with a brilliant sociopath who, instead of merely killing his victims, prefers to make them wish they were dead.

As the stakes grow higher and more personal, they find themselves fighting a losing battle with an enemy the law can't touch, who is always one step ahead, who is gradually discovering their weaknesses, their loves, and is determined to tear their world apart.

Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 1999
ISBN: 978-0062224057
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Moonlight Mile

Amanda McCready was four years old when she vanished from a Boston neighborhood twelve years ago. Desperate pleas for help from the child's aunt led investigators Kenzie and Gennaro to take on the case. The pair risked everything to find the young girl—only to orchestrate her return to a neglectful mother and a broken home.

Now Amanda is sixteen—and gone again. A stellar student, brilliant but aloof, she seemed destined to escape her upbringing. Yet Amanda's aunt is once more knocking on Patrick Kenzie's door, fearing the worst for the little girl who has blossomed into a striking, clever young woman—a woman who hasn't been seen in weeks.

Haunted by their consciences, Kenzie and Gennaro revisit the case that troubled them the most. Their search leads them into a world of identity thieves, methamphetamine dealers, a mentally unstable crime boss and his equally demented wife, a priceless, thousand-year-old cross, and a happily homicidal Russian gangster. It's a world in which motives and allegiances constantly shift and mistakes are fatal.

In their desperate fight to confront the past and find Amanda McCready, Kenzie and Gennaro will be forced to question if it's possible to do the wrong thing and still be right or to do the right thing and still be wrong. As they face an evil that goes beyond broken families and broken dreams, they discover that the sins of yesterday don't always stay buried and the crimes of today could end their lives.

Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 2010
ISBN: 978-0063084872
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks

Novellas

Red Eye: Patrick Kenzie vs. Harry Bosch

Harry Bosch finds himself on unfamiliar territory when he arrives at Boston’s Logan airport, on the trail of a fifteen-year-old unsolved murder.

Meanwhile, local P.I. Patrick Kenzie is sniffing around the same suspect that Bosch is tracking—but for a totally different reason: the recent disappearance of a seventh grade girl labeled as a runaway by the lead detective in charge of the case.

Kenzie isn’t so sure the girl went willingly out of her bedroom window in the middle of the night. When the two veterans meet outside the suspect’s house, each man plays a vital part in solving the other’s crime.

Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 2014
Ebook: B00P42WXYU
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Omnibus Books

Sacred / Gone Baby Gone / Prayers for Rain

Sacred (read by Robert Lawrence, directed by J.C. Howe, engineered by Kim King) Dying billionaire Trevor Stone hires Boston private detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro to find his missing daughter. Grief-stricken over the death of her mother and the impending death of her father, Desiree Stone has been missing for three weeks. So has the first investigator hired to find her: Jay Becker, Patrick's mentor.

Gone Baby Gone (read by Robert Lawrence, directed by Bill Weideman, engineered by Jeremy Spanos) Boston PIs Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro have been hired to find a six-year-old girl who vanished from her home without a trace. Despite enormous public attention, extensive news coverage, and dogged police work, the investigation has gone nowhere. But it's a case rife with sinister circumstances: a strangely indifferent mother, a pedophile couple, a bizarre subculture of homeless parents, and a shadowy police unit with a covert agenda and no qualms about enforcing it.

Prayers for Rain (read by Thomas J.S. Brown, directed by Sandra Burr, engineered by Jill Sovis) Boston private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro's relationship has hit the skids. But despite their problems, they join forces to close down a predator whose modus operandi seems to put him beyond the law. This killer's insidious murder weapon is within his victim's mind: no smoking gun, no bloody knife, just merciless manipulation that drives his targets to kill themselves.

Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 2002
ISBN: 978-1587887512
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
A Drink Before the War / Darkness, Take My Hand

A Drink before the War

Kenzie and Gennaro are private investigators in the blue-collar neighborhoods and ghettos of South Boston-they know it as only natives can. Working out of an old church belfry, Kenzie and Gennaro take on a seemingly simple assignment for a prominent politician: to uncover the whereabouts of Jenna Angeline, a black cleaning woman who has allegedly stolen confidential state documents.

Finding Jenna, however, is easy compared to staying alive once they've got her. The investigation escalates, implicating members of Jenna's family and rival gang leaders while uncovering extortion, assassination, and child prostitution extending from bombed-out ghetto streets to the highest levels of government.

Darkness, Take My Hand

Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro’s latest client is a prominent Boston psychiatrist, running scared from a vengeful Irish mob. The private investigators know about cold-blooded retribution. Born and bred on the mean streets of blue-collar Dorchester, they’ve seen the darkness that lives in the hearts of the unfortunate.

But an evil for which even they are unprepared is about to strike, as secrets that have long lain dormant erupt, setting off a chain of violent murders that will stain everything – including the truth.

Author: Dennis Lehane
First Release: 2007
ISBN: 978-0061172267
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks