Sixteen-year-old Amanda McCready has disappeared. Her anxious aunt contacts Patrick Kenzie to investigate. It is not the first time she has gone missing, as Patrick well knows - he was the investigator who worked on her case when she was kidnapped before, as a four-year-old.But this is not a simple case of a runaway girl. In fact, nothing in Amanda's life has been simple: brought up by the world's worst mother, neglected throughout her childhood, she has nonetheless blossomed into a formidably intelligent young woman. A young woman so bright that she can seemingly out-think and out-manoeuvre anyone...For Patrick, the case leads him down Boston's darkest, most dangerous streets - and into a world of shocking secrets that will threaten not only Amanda's life, but also his own and that of his partner Angie Gennaro.
When Detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro agree to protect the son of a prominent psychiatrist they soon find bodies are piling up around them. What's more, all the clues point to an unlikely suspect - a serial killer who has been in prison for twenty years, so he can't be killing again, can he? As the duo try to find out what kind of human being could perform such horrifying acts of mutilation, torture and dismemberment, they discover that the killer's motive is disturbingly rooted in their own past. In a series of heart-stopping climaxes that grow ever more bloody, ever more terrifying, the two detectives work frantically to capture the killer before they become victims themselves.
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, Trevor Stone hired to find her: Jay Becker, Patrick's mentor. As Patrick and Angie begin their search, they are led down a trail of half-truths and corruption into a world in which a therapeutic organization may be fronting for a dangerous cult; a hi-tech private investigation firm may be covering up lethal crimes; and a stolen cache of millions in illegal funds may be tied to both disappearances and a tanker full of heroin. Nothing is remotely what it seems as the detectives travel from the wind-blown streets of Boston to the rum-punch sunsets of Florida's Gulf Coast and back again, searching for a woman and a man who could be saints or sinners, victims or victimizers, alive or dead. And the more Patrick and Angie discover, the more they realize that on this case, any wrong step will certainly be their last.
A small southern town gives birth to a dangerous man with a broken heart and a high-powered rifle... A young girl, caught up in an inner-city gang war, crosses the line from victim to avenger... An innocent man is hunted by government agents for an unspecified crime... A boy and a girl fall in love while ransacking a rich man's house during the waning days of the Vietnam War... A compromised psychiatrist confronts the unstable patient he slept with... A father and a son wage a lethal battle of wits over the whereabouts of a stolen diamond and a missing woman.In turn suspenseful, surreal, romantic, and tragically comic, these tales journey headlong into the heart of our myths - about class, gender, freedom, and regeneration through violence - and reveal that the truth waiting for us there is not what we'd expect.
U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels has come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane, to find an escaped murderer named Rachel Solando.As a killer hurricane bears down on the island, the investigation deepens and the questions mount. How has a barefoot woman escaped from a locked room? Who is leaving them clues in the form of cryptic codes? And what really goes on in Ward C?The closer Teddy gets to the truth, the more elusive it becomes. And the more he begins to believe that he may never leave Shutter Island. Because someone is trying to drive him insane...
Joe Coughlin is nineteen when he meets Emma Gould. A smalltime thief in 1920s Boston, he is told to cuff her while his accomplices raid the casino she works for. But Joe falls in love with Emma - and his life changes for ever.That meeting is the beginning of Joe's journey to becoming one of the nation's most feared and respected gangsters. It is a journey beset by violence, double-crossing, drama and pain. And it is a journey into the soul of prohibition-era America...A powerful, deeply moving novel, Live By Night is a tour-de-force by Dennis Lehane, writer on The Wire and author of modern classics such as Shutter Island, Gone, Baby, Gone and The Given Day.
Boston private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro are hired to find four-year-old Amanda McCready.Despite extensive news coverage and dogged investigation into her abduction, the police have uncovered nothing. The case is rife with oddities: Amanda's indifferent mother, a couple with a history of paedophilia and a shadowy police unit. As the Indian summer fades, Amanda McCready stays gone - vanished so completely that she seems never to have existed. When a second child disappears, Kenzie and Gennaro face a local media more interested in sensationalizing the abductions than helping to solve them, a local police force seething with lethal secrets, and a faceless power determined to obstruct their efforts. Caught in a deadly tangle of lies, and determined to unravel the riddle that is anything but child's play, they soon discover that those who go looking for the missing may not come back alive.
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.
The Drop follows lonely bartender Bob Saginowski through a cover scheme of funelling cash to local gangsters -- 'money drops' -- in the underworld of Boston bars. Under the heavy hand of his employer and cousin Marv, Bob finds himself at the centre of a robbery gone awry and entwined in an investigation that digs deep into the neighbourhood's past where friends, families and foes all work together to make a living -- no matter the cost.A moving, gripping thriller, from Dennie Lehane, acclaimed New York Times bestselling autor of Shutter Island, Gone, Baby, Gone and Mystic River, The Drop will stay with you long after you turn the last page.
'The best gangster novel since The Godfather' Stephen KingJoe Coughlin is untouchable. Once one of America's most feared and prominent gangsters, he now moves effortlessly between the social elite, politicians, police and the mob. He has everything he could possibly want; money, power, a beautiful mistress, and anonymity. But in a town that runs on corruption, vengeance and greed, success can't protect Joe from the dark truth of his past -- and ultimately, the wages of a lifetime of sin will finally be paid in full . . .Chilling, heart-breaking and gripping, this is the most complex and powerful novel to date from Dennis Lehane, writer on The Wire and author of modern classics such as Shutter Island, Gone, Baby, Gone and The Given Day.
'The most thrilling novel I've read all year' Kate Atkinson I LOVED YOU
I HATED YOU
I NEVER KNEW YOU...Rachel's husband adores her. When she hit rock bottom, he was there with her every step of the way as she slowly regained her confidence, and her sanity. But his mysterious behaviour forces her to probe for the truth about her beloved husband.How can she feel certain that she ever knew him?And was she right to ever trust him?Bringing together Dennis Lehane's trademark insightful and emphathetic characterisation, razor-sharp dialogue, stunning atmosphere and breakneck twists and turns, Since We Fell is a true masterpiece that will keep you in suspense until the very end.
There are threads in our lives. You pull one, and everything else gets affected. When they were children, Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus and Dave Boyle were friends. But then a strange car pulled up their street. One boy got in 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 Devine is a homicide detective. Jimmy Marcus is an ex-con who owns a corner store. And Dave Boyle is trying to hold his marriage together and keep his demons at bay - demons that urge him to do horrific things. When Jimmy Marcus' daughter is found murdered, Sean Devine is assigned to the case. His personal life unravelling, he must go back into a world he thought he'd left behind. His investigation brings him into conflict with Jimmy Marcus, who finds his old criminal impulses tempt him to solve the crime with brutal justice. And then there is Dave Boyle, who came home the night Jimmy's daughter died covered in someone else's blood...
Boston, 1918. A city in turmoil as soldiers return home from World War One.Danny Coughlin is the son of one of Boston's most powerful police captains. An undercover cop, he is hunting for revolutionaries and anarchists who are pledged to overthrow the city's ruling classes. But Danny's about to find out that doing his duty may also mean betraying those who are closest to him. Luther Lawrence is on the run. Having survived a murderous confrontation with a crime boss, he lands a job in the Coughlin household. Desperate to find a way home for his pregnant wife, Luther is determined to avoid trouble. But it isn't long before his dangerous past and his tenuous present collide - with life threatening consequences. As the city goes into meltdown, Danny and Luther must confront the storm of violence that threatens to engulf them if each is to survive...
In this original short story from the thrilling anthology Face Off, internationally bestselling authors Dennis Lehane and Michael Connelly - along with their popular series characters Patrick Kenzie and Harry Bosch - team up for the first time ever. Red Eye has been shortlisted for the prestigious CWA Short Story Dagger 2015. 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 labelled 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. For more exciting short story pairings, don't forget that there are eleven stories in the collection Face Off!
