Ben Abbott
mystery
Series · crime fiction
Kenzie & Gennaro
The Kenzie & Gennaro series by Dennis Lehane has 6 books and is best read in publication order, starting with A Drink Before the War (1994). The series is complete.
- Books
- 6 books
- First published
- 1994
- Status
- complete
- Last checked
Start here: A Drink Before the War (1994) — then read straight through in publication order.
Reading order
The order the books were released — the default way to read the series.
- Book 1:
A Drink Before the War
Alternative text for cover: Cover of A Drink Before the War - Book 2:
Darkness, Take My Hand
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Darkness, Take My Hand - Book 3:
Sacred
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Sacred - Book 4:
Gone, Baby, Gone
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Gone, Baby, Gone - Book 5:
Prayers for Rain
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Prayers for Rain - Book 6:
Moonlight Mile
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Moonlight Mile
About the Kenzie & Gennaro series
Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro run a two-person private investigation office out of a church belfry in Boston's Dorchester neighbourhood, working cases that keep dragging them into the working-class, Irish-Catholic world they both grew up in and never fully escaped. Dennis Lehane built the series around a tight, first-person Kenzie voice and a moral seriousness unusual for hardboiled detective fiction: the cases -- a missing girl, a serial predator preying on children, a kidnapping that forces an agonising ethical choice -- consistently ask what a person owes their community, their partner, and their own conscience, not just whodunit. Kenzie and Gennaro's on-again, off-again partnership, both professional and romantic, and their evolving found family (including the volatile, magnetic Bubba Rogowski) run through all six books.
Lehane wrote the first five novels in quick succession through the 1990s, then walked away from the series to write standalone literary crime fiction -- Mystic River and Shutter Island among them -- before returning eleven years later with Moonlight Mile, which catches up with Kenzie and Gennaro as married parents confronting the now-adult version of the missing girl from Gone, Baby, Gone.
Frequently asked questions
How many Kenzie & Gennaro books are there?
Six, published between 1994 and 2010: A Drink Before the War, Darkness Take My Hand, Sacred, Gone Baby Gone, Prayers for Rain, and Moonlight Mile.
What order should I read Kenzie & Gennaro in?
Publication order -- the relationship between Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, and the supporting cast, develop continuously across the books.
Do I need to read Gone, Baby, Gone before Moonlight Mile?
Yes -- Moonlight Mile is a direct sequel to Gone, Baby, Gone, returning to the same missing-child case eleven years later.
Is the series connected to Mystic River or Shutter Island?
No, those are standalone Lehane novels set in the same general Boston milieu but with no shared characters or plot connections to Kenzie & Gennaro.
If you like the Kenzie & Gennaro series
Reading order last verified .