The Drop

By: Dennis Lehane

Narrated by: Jim Frangione

Dennis Lehane returns to the streets of Mystic Riverwith this love story wrapped in a crime story wrapped in a journey of faith - the basis for the major motion picture The Drop, from Fox Searchlight Pictures directed by Michaël Roskam, screenplay by Dennis Lehane, and starring Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, and James Gandolfini.

Three days after Christmas, a lonely bartender looking for a reason to live rescues an abused puppy from a trash can and meets a damaged woman looking for something to believe in. As their relationship grows, they cross paths with the Chechen mafia; a man grown dangerous with age and thwarted hopes; two hapless stick-up artists; a very curious cop; and the original owner of the puppy, who wants his dog back.

©2014 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (P)2014 HarperCollins Publishers

Simple yet tightly knit story grounded in reality

It does read like a script that there is a lot of dialogue between characters, but book is excellent, and I throughly enjoyed it. It is a very focused book on few characters. Author does a great job developing these characters, and I got to know them very well.

Story is simple but powerful rooted in gritty reality that I could see these events could take place in rea life. At times, readers are introduced to either very accomplished tough guys, or naive incompetent ones. This books walks a fine line between these characters which are possibly neither. It made a very interesting read. This is my first Lehane book, but it will not be the last. I highly recommend Lehane.

Narrator did a great job portraying the grittiness of various tough guys. Overall, narrator is able to capture the spirit of the book. Again, I would be looking for other books narrated by from Jim Frangione.

Saw the movie…..

Liked the book so much better. Definately worth the listen. Loved the listen looking forward to more of his books in the future

Another amazing Lehane

Characters with depth and a well written novel. The reason reading was invented. Amazing work.

Short but Satisfying

If you could sum up The Drop in three words, what would they be?

Plenty of tension

What other book might you compare The Drop to and why?

None come to mind.

What about Jim Frangione’s performance did you like?

He gets out of the way of the story.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes, and I almost did, but I wanted to save the ending for the next day!

Any additional comments?

The Drop is short for a Dennis Lehane, but the story didn't suffer from it. As usual, Lehane masters the craft of inner dialogue that allows us to live inside the protagonist's head and reveals the complete character. I wished it were a bit longer; then again, this one has so much tension I might be glad it's shorter than usual. Another Lehane winner.

So much more

than I expected. No good guys nor bad ones. Just flawed people getting to the next day.

A relief after stepping out of Blood Meridian

Another Author could have written double the character development and still not accomplished Lehan ‘s simple story. Just enough to hook you emotionally to the characters while still moving the story forward. Violence. Love and redemption…

Excellent

Lebanese cane write dialog and create characters so very real and deep it's like you grew up with them.
satisfying

It Kept Me Listening (and Squirming)

I wanted to keep listening to the story just to see how all of the people in it were going to survive the questionable decisions they made as the story goes on. It's a world where almost no one's intentions are completely pure. The main characters seem to get squeezed tighter and tighter as the story moves forward, unable to avoid the trouble that comes with being close to organized crime. Parts of it also give credence to the expression "No good deed goes unpunished."
The ending is about as upbeat as one could expect, given all of the bad things and people that are in it.
The character development is quite good. The images created by the author are vivid and disturbing.
There is also an undercurrent running through the story about the nature of forgiveness, are some actions are so bad as to be unforgivable, and what is required to receive forgiveness.
The narrator does a good job of intonation with the different characters (who are either from Boston or Chechnya) - maybe he goes a little over the top sometimes, but not in an annoying way.

Entertaining but a little short

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Yes, keep me intrigued

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

Main character; some of the characters backgrounds that played very small rolls in this shorter book

Which character – as performed by Jim Frangione – was your favorite?

Main character

Do you think The Drop needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

Sure

New Favorite

I read this book because I loved the film. I didn't realize when I saw it that LeHane wrote the book, but that didn't matter -- I needed to read the source material. I am now a big fan. As much as I liked the novel, the performance lacked some nuance in areas. I could have used more emphasis in certain passages.. While these were distracting at times they didn't take away from the story. Mr LeHane writes very literal books that make great movies like Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone. I will be listening to many more of his novels.