Dennis Lehane, born August 4, 1965 in Dorchester, Massachusetts, USA, is an American writer. Lehane was a regular writer for The Wire and scripted three episodes of the series. He was one of several acclaimed crime novelists brought in to work on the show alongside George Pelecanos and Richard Price.
Career[]
Lehane was a successful novelist prior to working on The Wire. He penned a series of modern crime novels featuring private detectives Kenzie and Gennaro.
His novel Mystic River was adapted into a critically acclaimed film by writer Brian Helgeland. The film was directed by Clint Eastwood and was released in 2003. The film features The Wire star John Doman in a supporting role.
He began working on The Wire as a writer for the third season in 2004. He wrote the teleplay for the episode "Dead Soldiers" from a story by show runner David Simon. Lehane returned as a wrter for the fourth season in 2006. He wrote the teleplay for the episode "Refugees" from a story by co-creator Ed Burns. Lehane also scripted an episode for the fifth and final season in 2008. He wrote the teleplay for "Clarifications" from a story by Simon.
Lehane release a collection of short stories in 2006 entitled Coronado.
Also while The Wire was in production Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard adapted Lehane's novel Gone Baby Gone into a film. Affleck directed the movie and cast his brother Casey Affleck as Patrick Kenzie. The Wire stars Michael K. Williams and Amy Ryan also appeared in the film.
Lehane adapted his 2009 short story Animal Rescue into a feature film script and expanded it into a novella. The resulting film The Drop was the final project of actor James Gandolfini and was released in 2014.
Lehane focused on historical fiction for his novels following his work on The Wire. He penned a trilogy of fiction novels about the Coughlin family of Boston Massachussets, across the early twentieth century. The first The Given Day focused on Boston patrolman Danny Coughlin. A pair of follow-ups Live By Night and World Gone By focused on his brother Joe Coughlin, an organised crime figure. Live By Night was adapted by Affleck into a film. Affleck played the lead role of Joe Coughlin in the adaptation.
Lehane also penned a sixth book in his Kenzie and Gennaro series, Moonlight Mile (2010).
In 2010 Martin Scorsese directed an adaptation of Lehane's novel Shutter Island from a screenplay by Laeta Kalogridis. The association with Scorsese and HBO led to work on the historical drama series Boardwalk Empire for Lehane in 2013. He served as a consulting producer for the fourth season of the show.
Lehane returned to television in 2016 as a consulting producer for the series Bloodline in 2016. He went on to work on Mr. Mercedes, an adaptation of Stephen King's crime thriller series of novels in 2017. Lehane served as an Executive Producer and regular writer for the series.
Also in 2017 Lehane published a new novel Since We Fell.
After many years away from the characters Lehane revisited Kenzie and Gennaro in 2018 with a further adaptation of Gone Baby Gone, this time for television.
He reunited with Richard Price to work on another King adaptation, The Outsider in 2020. Lehane was a consulting producer and writer for the project.