McKenzie and Genarro, private detectives working as partners with their offices in an abandoned church, are hired to track down a cleaning lady for the state senate who's suppose to have stolen some delicate papers on upcoming legislation. All is not as it seems though (is it ever in politics?) and McKenzie and Genarro soon find themselves involved in child pornography, gang violence and murder.
In some ways A Drink Before The War reminded me of Robert Parker's early Spenser novels, which is good, but only as they would've been if Spenser's annoying girlfriend, Susan Silverman, were partners with Spenser in his detective agency, which is bad. Even so, out of this came a fair book, maybe a little above average, about detectives McKenzie and Genarro. A Drink Before The War's strengths are it's snappy dialogue, interesting characters and a plotline that was very well thought out. Its weakness is that two of its primary characters were very annoying. Genarro, with 'her come here; no go away' attitude toward McKenzie reminded me of Susan Silverman's character in the Spenser series at her worse. Granted this is the first book in this series and Genarro's character may become more interesting, but if A Drink Before The War is any indication the series would be much stronger without her character. Second, since Robert Parker introduced Spenser's sidekick Hawk, a professional legbreaker who, as Spenser once put it "isn't good, but he's a good man." It seems every private detective now has to have a hard case for a partner. Not only that, but it also seems that every new sidekick introduced has to be meaner, tougher and more psychotic then the last one until some of them are nothing more then pitbulls on two legs. McKenzie's sidekick, who's so paranoid as to have placed landmines in his living room, is so vicious as to be ludicrous and badly detracted from the book. Still, McKenzie was an interesting character, with a nice background and, despite the fact that much of his sarcasm fell flat, a nice sense of humor. I have a great deal of hope for future tales of McKenzie and Genarro and, if future books improve as is often the case with new series, I'd be glad to buy Patrick Lehane a drink either before or after the war.
Grade: B
