2023-09-09 05:08:17
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In “Seconds of Grace,” Dennis Lehane shakes up black-and-white thinking in 1974 Boston with a murder.
With the haunting novel “Seconds of Grace” Dennis Lehane once once more shows his great storytelling skills
“Seconds of Grace” by Dennis Lehane is our crime tip of the week.
A mother with anger in her stomach and a box cutter in her hand should never be underestimated. Mary Pat Fennessy is looking for her 17-year-old daughter Jules, who doesn’t come home one evening. She suspects the worst, but here in South Boston, with its precarious white population, people no longer trust the cops to help in such situations. Mary Pat, who doesn’t want to lose her last hold on life following her husband and her son, is determined to do anything in her desperate search and doesn’t exactly act squeamishly.
She takes on the half-strong stoner boys from the butler crew, with whom Jules probably hung out. First she slashes at their soft tissues or then even uses heroin as a truth drug to get reliable clues. On the night of Jules’ disappearance, something happened that no one likes to talk regarding: four white kids are chasing the black teenager Auggie, who shows up in the wrong neighborhood at the wrong time. At a train stop he falls in front of an incoming train and dies. A tragic accident – or even murder? Was Jules involved?
Dennis Lehane: Seconds of Grace
Diogenes, 2023, 400 S., 26 Euro
From d. English v. Malte Krutzsch
Dennis Lehane tells the intense story once morest the historical background that in 1974 there was a court order that was supposed to lead to the overcoming of racial segregation in Boston’s schools: buses bring a percentage of black students from the Roxbury district to the schools in South Boston. Conversely, whites should go to Roxbury, the predominantly black neighborhood. Jules was also among those chosen and was no longer allowed to attend her previous high school.
The Irish working class equates black youth with criminal drug dealers
This “busing” measure sparks vehement opposition from the poverty-stricken Irish working class, who equate black youth with criminal drug dealers. Frustration erupts at protest rallies and soon the first bricks are thrown at buses. 42-year-old Mary Pat is an example of those left behind in the run-down residential area controlled by Marty Butler’s gang of gangsters. Even with two jobs she can’t pay the gas bill and now she has to accept that her only daughter is also taken away from her?
Is it the last novel by Dennis Lehane?
In addition to her perspective, there is also that of Detective Michael “Bobby” Coyne, with whom Dennis Lehane follows the search for Jules in the tense situation. Bobby brought war trauma and a drug problem with him from Vietnam. He now wages his fight once morest himself and for justice in cases like Jules’. He stubbornly tries to uncover the events of that fateful night, which also make Jules look different thanks to a crucial detail. If not Jules, can Bobby still save Mary Pat? Dennis Lehane once once more shows his great storytelling skills with this haunting novel. One last time? The rumor persists that Lehane will only write screenplays from now on.
With “Seconds of Grace” Dennis Lehane made it onto our list of the best crime novels in September 2023.
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