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There are, in my opinion, few successful writers of literary crime thrillers. Trying to create something beautiful and profound while, at the same time, keeping the reader glued to the pages and guessing to the end is an almost impossible task to achieve. Which is why I rate Dennis Lehane so highly. He has always been one of those few.

The Massachusetts-based author of eight novels, including the award-winning Mystic River, Lehane's prose may be lyrical and flowing, but there's also a real hard-edged authenticity to his stories of the Boston underworld. He has that all-too-rare capability of drawing you in from the very first page, and once you're in, he's not letting go. The characterisation is incisive; the dialogue crackles with dark humour; and the locations immediately become alive so that you feel you're walking the streets with him.

If I was to recommend a single Lehane book, it would be Gone, Baby, Gone, one of a series of five novels featuring the private detective team Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro. The two detectives are hired to find a young girl who has been abducted from her home while her mother was out drinking. It's a controversial subject, but from the beginning Lehane handles it with real sensitivity and, as we follow the two on their investigation, it soon becomes clear that there's far more to this abduction than meets the eye. The pace is fast, the atmosphere intense and it contains one of the finest action scenes I have yet read, a brilliant example of tension-building that should be required reading for any would-be thriller writer.

The 50 Greatest Crime Writers

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Background

• Ian Rankin on the trouble with lists

• More trouble with lists

Related Internet Links

• Top 50 Crime Writers - Main Page

And the ending... Well, it'll leave you thinking for a very long time. And that, for a crime novel, is no bad thing.

One to read: Gone, Baby, Gone (1998) Buy the book

Simon Kernick is a British crime writer whose past jobs have included fruit picker and Christmas tree uprooter. In The Times last year he told the story of how, aged 16, he escaped from a kidnap attempt, inspiring his thriller Relentless, which was picked as a Richard & Judy Summer Read and quickly became a bestseller. His latest novel Severed is out now in paperback.

Interview with Dennis Lehane

Video: Dennis Lehane interview

Dennis Lehane’s official website

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