The Hungry Detective

 A time honored tradition at The Hungry Detective HQ is to perform the twice annual, and largely ceremonial, 'Dennis Lehane New book 20XX" Google search. Nothing comes up on his long abandoned Website, except notification of the script work for his television and film projects.  Grousing aside, 2022 was a big year for Mr. Lehane. BLACK BIRD, a show he created, played on Apple+ to solid acclaim. The show's star, Paul Walter Hauser, won a Golden Globe. But despite that I have yet to watch it. Not for any other reason than I am a movie person more than a TV person. The TV I do watch is watched in an arcane order that is difficult to decipher and even more baffling to explain. Short story, I need to watch ANDOR [Editor's Note: Slow going on ANDOR despite everyone telling me it is amazing.] And then BLACK BIRD, or maybe SLOW HORSES. I'll get there...  Anyway at the dead end of 2022, I did the search. Found out he wrote a book. SMALL MERCIES . I was excited to hear it. I...

10 years ago I ranked all of the books written by Dennis Lehane. It was a fun post. Some people hate lists and ranking. Those people are cowards and nobody likes them. My ranking for Mr. Lehane then was as follows. 8. PRAYERS FOR RAIN, 7. SACRED, 6. SHUTTER ISLAND, 5. A DRINK BEFORE THE WAR, 4. THE GIVEN DAY, 3. MYSTIC RIVER, 2. DARKNESS TAKE MY HAND, 1. GONE BABY GONE. Since then he has written depressingly few books for this reader's taste... MOONLIGHT MILE (2010). LIVE BY NIGHT (2012). THE DROP (2015). WORLD GONE BY (2015). SINCE WE FELL (2017). I am updating the ranking to include these 5 books. I should note that I did not re-read these books for this list. 13. MOONLIGHT MILE (2010) After a decade in hibernation Kenzie-Gennaro were back. I was too excited for this book. I believe I was in the room when Mr. Lehane first announced that he had written or was writing a new K+G book. Reading it was crushingly disappointing. No verve, no brio. Every page reeked of his disinterest in...

The last time I chimed in about a book was THE SHADOWS WE HIDE. So here is everything I have read since then. THE KILLING HABIT - Mark Billingham Wait....the last time I chimed in about a book was THE KILLING HABIT. Anyway, the latest, THEIR LITTLE SECRET, is coming on June 4th. I am v. excited about this book. [ Editors Note: Sorry about the usage of 'v. excited.' ] WALT FOR SIGNS - Craig Johnson A book wanted to love but only liked. My issue is with the form, more than the writing. Set-up, punchline, out. Their inherent briefness is somehow not satisfying particularly for characters that I love to see and hang with. Extra points though for the evocative wintery setting of many of the pieces. THE HIGHWAYMAN - Craig Johnson A ghost story that I read way to fast. Mr. Johnson is a wonderful writer for place and mood, and with a ghost story, I feel like you need to savor that writing. Read a chapter or two over the course of many nights right before bed. Instead...

When I started getting into Crime Fiction in a serious way, what that meant was, I started going to bookstores that exclusively sold the stuff. For me that is, and now sadly was, the Milwaukee store Mystery One run by the great Richard Katz. I can't be sure what I bought that first visit.... I think it might have been CROSSROAD BLUES by Ace Atkins.  Richard quizzed me on my likes and I am pretty certain [Editor's Note: Or at least as certain as one can be in a blog post. ] that he recommended Dennis Lehane's first book, A DRINK BEFORE THE WAR. I promptly went home and ordered the book from Amazon. Sorry, Richard. As a way of an apology, for as long as I lived in Milwaukee I purchased every subsequent book Mr. Lehane released at Mystery One. It was the best place to turn a pastime into a passion. Places like Mystery One and writers like Dennis Lehane are a perfect combination to draw you in. Driving to work recently, I was trying to figure out what I like about Mr. Le...

  First image from Live By Night the latest Dennis Lehane novel to be directed by Ben Affleck has appeared. Here is the accompanying article from Indiewire . What can you say about one singular image from a film that will include a hundred thousand or so? It looks good. I'm a sucker for big fields of grass, what can I say? I have enjoyed all of Ben Affleck's directing efforts to date, even if I wasn't wowed by any of them. I don't mean to damn him with faint praise. He is a solid, unpretentious director of capital m 'Movies'. And even if he wasn't making the best thing Dennis Lehane has written in the last ten years I would still go see his next effort. The movie is slated for a 2017 release which I'm not certain should be believed. In spite of the film already vacating a Fall 2016 date, if the movie is even kind of  good, dollars to donuts it sneaks into a late 2016 release for Award show consideration. A 2017 release date seems more acc...

Most interesting to me, as I never knew this, is that ANIMAL RESCUE/THE DROP was born out of MISSING DELORES.... [Editor's Note: I work for AMPAS]

Dennis Lehane - Grantland Podcast Here is a good podcast from the greater Grantland empire. I have listened to a lot of the Grantland podcasts the last few months. And just about every one is smart, thoughtful, and frequently silly. Interviewed by Andy Greenwald, Mr. Lehane focuses THE DROP in all its forms, but touches on his work during THE WIRE, and writing THE GIVEN DAY, LIVE BY NIGHT, and the forthcoming conclusion WORLD GONE BY. Plus a mess of upcoming TV projects. Check it...