Book Review: The Drop

the-dropDennis Lehane might not be an author whose name you recognize, but you know his work. Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, Shutter Island… These are movies, but they were books first. His books.

I read Gone Baby Gone in graduate school as it fits the police procedural/mystery/detective genre perfectly. Lehane writes as if the book is also a screenplay. The story unfolds in your brain like a film. When I saw The Drop at a used book store, I bought it without question.

Good call, too, because reading The Drop was just like watching a movie. Just as I’d hoped.

Bob Saginowski is a modest bartender at Cousin Marv’s (his employer and actual cousin), where the place serves as a drop for local gangsters, a detail local police officers have never been able to nail down. Cousin Marv has been in the ring for a long time, and by default, so has Bob. Two days after Christmas, Bob finds a near-dead dog in a dumpster. Shortly after, the bar is robbed. It wasn’t the cash register the two men were after but rather the drop money, money that didn’t belong to Marv.

As the investigation unfolds, players from the past come back to Boston, raising questions about gang and family loyalty and who’s really in charge.

That’s really all you need to know. Lehane is great. The Drop doesn’t disappoint.

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