Synopses & Reviews
From Dennis Lehane, the award-winning author of
Mystic River,
Shutter Island, and the Kenzie-Gennaro series, comes a striking collection of five short stories and a play.
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...
Along with completely original material, this new collection is a compilation of the best of Dennis Lehane's previously published short stories, including "Until Gwen," which was adapted for the stage in 2005 and appears in this book as the play Coronado.
At turns suspenseful, surreal, romantic, and tragically comic, these tales journey headlong into the heart of our national myths about class, gender, freedom, and regeneration through violence
and reveal that the truth waiting for us there is not what we'd expect.
Review
"Tough-as-nails crime fiction transcends genre in this first collection....[A] knockout performance. An impressive step forward for a writer of commanding gifts, who seems poised on the threshold of even greater accomplishment." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"[A] wide streak of Lehane's vivid and melancholy darkness winds through this mean, gripping collection, buffeting its bleak landscapes and shaping its desperate characters." Miami Herald
Review
"Dennis Lehane has a startling capacity for assessing broken people i.e., who can be restored to the fold of humanity and who should be put down like animals. These five stories are filled with hard cases... (Grade: B+)" Entertainment Weekly
Review
"[A]n apt reminder that the master of crime and literary fiction is also a proficient short-story writer....And who better to entertain the newcomer to the genre than an author whose stories make us dig deep down into our own hopes and fears." USA Today
Synopsis
The New York Times bestselling author of Mystic River and Shutter Island returns with a collection of riveting short stories.
Though best known for his hugely successful novels, Dennis Lehane is also a master of short fiction. In this new collection, Lehane has compiled the best of his previously published short stories, as well as one completely new tale. Infused with the compelling narrative drive, piercing insight, and psychological drama that have made his novels bestsellers, as well as a skilled literary sensibility, Coronado is sure to satisfy this acclaimed writer's large and devoted following.
Synopsis
A collection of riveting short stories from the New York Times bestselling author of Mystic River and Shutter Island.
Though best known for his hugely successful novels, Dennis Lehane is also a master of short fiction. In this collection, Lehane has compiled the best of his previously published short stories, as well as a story unique to this collection. 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. Gone Down to Corpus features Texas high-school football jocks with an unnameable rage that can only be satisfied through destruction. The final story in the collection, Until Gwen tells the disturbing tale of a son who took the fall for his conman father and Gwen, whom he hoped would be waiting on the outside. In Lehane's capable hands, each story unflinchingly faces the darkest depths of the human experience. With the compelling narrative drive, piercing insight, and psychological drama that have made his novels bestsellers, as well as a skilled literary sensibility, Coronado is sure to satisfy this acclaimed writer's large and devoted following.
Synopsis
Now available with a contemporary look, a must-have collection of riveting short stories from the New York Times bestselling author of Mystic River and Shutter Island.
"Locations are vivid and crisp, characters are memorable and, most importantly, the story lines dig into you and leave their mark." --Boston Herald
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.
Synopsis
Though best known for his hugely successful novels such as
Mystic River and
Shutter Island, Dennis Lehane has been publishing his short stories in a wide variety of publications for years. "Until Gwen" was published in the
Atlantic Monthly in June, 2005, and has now been adapted into the play
Coronado which opened in Manhattan in November, 2005. "Running Out of Dog" was featured in the anthologies
Best American Mystery Stories 2005, as well as
Best American Mystery Stories of the Century. This collection compiles the best of Lehane's previously published short stories, as well as one completely new tale.
Full of the same riveting storytelling that has made his novels so popular, as well as some more literary material, this collection of Dennis Lehane's short stories is sure to satisfy the author's large fanbase.
About the Author
Dennis Lehane is the author of A Drink Before the War, which won the Shamus Award for Best First Novel; Darkness, Take My Hand; Sacred; Gone, Baby, Gone; Prayers for Rain; and the New York Times bestsellers Mystic River and Shutter Island. A native of Dorchester, Massachusetts, he lives in the Boston area.