The first in Lehane's acclaimed series with Boston detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro is a remarkable debut that is at once a pulsating crime thriller and a mirror of the world, one in which the worst human horrors are found closest to home, and the most vicious obscenities are committed in the name of love. 288 pp. As richly complex and brutal as the terrain it depicts, here is the mesmerizing, darkly original novel that heralded the arrival of Dennis Lehane, the master of the new "noir" -- and introduced Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, his smart and tough private investigators weaned on the blue-collar streets of Dorchester. A cabal of powerful Boston politicians is willing to pay Kenzie and Gennaro big money for a seemingly small job: to find the missing cleaning woman who stole some secret documents. As Kenzie and Gennaro learn, however, this crime is no ordinary theft. It's about justice. About right and wrong. But in Boston, finding the truth isn't just a dirty business ... it's deadly. Dennis Lehane is the author of nine novels?including the "New York Times" bestsellers "Moonlight Mile"; "Gone, Baby, Gone"; "Mystic River"; "Shutter Island"; and "The Given Day"?as well as "Coronado", a collection of short stories and a play. He and his wife, Angie, divide their time between Boston and the Gulf Coast of Florida.