How have I missed Dennis Lehane until now? I just read (according to the book jacket) his 12th book, The Drop. It’s a stunner.
It’s hard to know which sentences to quote. Here are a few. Chovka is a Chechen mob Boss. Bob is a quiet man, an underling:
“Chovka nodded. He was concentrating on his phone, texting away like a sixteen-year-old girl during school lunch. When he finished texting, he put the phone away and stared at Bob for a very long time. If Bob had to guess, he’d say the silence went on for thee minutes, maybe four. Felt like two days. Not a soul moving in that bar, not a sound but that of six men breathing. Chovka stared into Bob’s eyes and then past his eyes and over his heart and through his blood. Followed that blood through his lungs, though his brain, moved through Bob’s thoughts and then his memories like moving through the rooms of a house that might already be condemned.”
The Drop as a whole is a wonderful, noir thriller–and you never know which way it’s going to go–darker? lighter? Kept me up reading. Thank you Mr. Lehane. I’m heading to the library for more.