Thursday, June 5, 2008

Dennis Lehane's Next Novel

As I mentioned before in this blog entry, I credit Dennis Lehane and his book, Mystic River, with my awakening to crime fiction in general. But it has been five years since he published his last book, Shutter Island. Now, via the Houston Chronicle, is a reference to his next book, being published this fall.

Most-talked-about fiction at the show, which concluded Sunday in Los Angeles, included Dennis Lehane's The Given Day. Lehane, best known for Mystic River, a best-seller and basis of the 2003 movie, spoke at Sunday's author breakfast, and you could hardly avoid tripping over the ubiquitous advance-reading copies scattered around the convention center. His 704-page epic deals with the 1919 police strike in Boston.

Looking forward to it but with some trepidation. You see, I am planning on writing a novel about the 1917 race riot here in Houston during the early days of America's entry into World War I. I don't want to be seen as copying but it'll happen nonetheless. Guess I'd better bring my A Game, or, rather, my A+ Game.

Still, this year we'll have a new Lehane novel and a new Pelecanos novel. Couple that with the fantastic movies we're having this year and the completion of my second novel, 2008 is shaping up to be a banner year.

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