Dick Lehr – författare

“A monumental account. . . .Lehr''s depiction of one of the darkest chapters in Boston law-enforcement history . . .has all the earmarks of a classic.” —Dennis Lehane, New York Times–bestselling author of Mystic River and Shutter Island

The Boston police officers who brutally beat Michael Cox at a deserted fence one icy night in 1995 knew right away that they had made a terrible mistake. The badge and handgun under Cox''s bloodied parka proved it: He was not a black gang member but a plainclothes officer who had been chasing the same murder suspect they were.

While Cox was being beaten, Officer Kenny Conley chased down and captured the suspect. Afterward, as Cox waited for an apology from his department, federal prosecutors accused Conley of lying when he denied witnessing Cox''s beating. Both Cox and Conley grew up in Boston and had dedicated their lives to serving the Boston Police Department, but when they needed its support, they were abandoned.

Respected journalist Lehr, winner of the Hancock Award, the Loeb Award, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and bestselling author of Black Mass and Judgment Ridge, sheds a brilliant light on all aspects of this powerful, disturbing event and its aftermath.

“Jolting, nightmarish and potent, this true cop yarn bests any bogus reality show or overblown tabloid tale with its hard-boiled spin.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“[A] white-knuckle tale” of the targeted kill . . .of the admiral behind the Pearl Harbor attack “sheds new light on an important . . .turning point in the war” (USA Today).

On December seven, 1941, the Japanese navy launched a surprise aerial assault on U.S. bases on Hawaii. In a little over two hours, more than two,400 Americans were dead, propelling the U.S.’s entry into World War II.

Dead Reckoning is the true story of the high-stakes operation undertaken to avenge that deadly strike. Expertly crafting this “hunt for Bin Laden” —style WWII story, New York Times–bestselling author Dick Lehr recreates the tension-filled events leading up to the climactic clash in the South Pacific skies.

Lehr goes behind the scenes at Station Hypo on Hawaii, where U.S. Navy code breakers first discovered exactly where and when to find Admiral Yamamoto, and then chronicles in dramatic detail the nerve-wracking mission to kill him.

Lehr focuses on Army Air Force Major John W. Mitchell, the ace fighter pilot tasked with conceiving a flight route. Given unprecedented access to Mitchell’s personal papers, Lehr reveals for the first time the full story of Mitchell’s wartime exploits up to the face-off with Yamamoto, along with those of key American pilots Mitchell chose for the momentous mission. The spotlight also shines on their enemy target –Admiral Yamamoto, the enigmatic, charismatic commander in chief of Japan’s Combined Fleet.

“Riveting . . .Major John Mitchell and his avenger flyboys emerge in these pages as true-blue military heroes of the Greatest Generation.” — Douglas Brinkley

“Lehr is a gifted raconteur. . . .[His] telling . . .has the excitement of a Steve McQueen car chase.” — Wall Street Journal

From the co-author of Black Mass comes a gripping YA novel based on the true story of a teenage girl’s murder—and a young father’s false imprisonment for the crime.

On a hot summer night in the late 1980s, in the Boston neighborhood of Roxbury, a fourteen-year-old African-American girl was sitting on a mailbox talking with her friends when she became the innocent victim of gang-related gunfire. Amid public outcry, an immediate manhunt was on to catch the murderer, and a young African-American man was quickly apprehended, charged, and—wrongly—convicted of the crime. Dick Lehr, a former reporter for the Boston Globe’s famous Spotlight Team who worked on this story three decades ago, brings the case to light once more with Trell, a page-turning novel about the daughter of the imprisoned man, who persuades a reporter and a lawyer to help her prove her father’s innocence. What pieces of evidence might have been overlooked? Can they manage to get to the truth before a dangerous character from the neighborhood gets to them?