The Drop, by Dennis Lehane

Dennis Lehane. The Drop. New York: William Morrow/HarperCollins, 2014. 207 pages. ISBN 9780062365446.

In Dennis Lehane's The Drop, a shy and lonely bartender named Bob finds an abused puppy in a trash barrel and decides to adopt it. He befriends Nadia, a woman from the neighborhood, who teaches him how to take care of the puppy. Bob lives by himself in the home he inherited from his parents. He works with his cousin Marv in a bar that Marv used to own but which has been taken over by Chechen mafia gangsters. One night the bar is robbed by two neighborhood losers, and it sets in motion a series of events that threaten Bob and Marv. On top of all of this, the original owner of the puppy is a sociopath who begins to stalk and harass Bob and Nadia.

All of this plays out very quickly in this short novel. Mr. Lehane packs a lot into just a few pages, and it left me wanting more. More character, more plot development, more description. I don't know if this spare treatment was intentional or just a byproduct of turning a screenplay into a novel, rather than vice versa. I enjoyed The Drop, but I read it in just a few hours. I hope that Mr. Lehane's next effort is a little more substantial.