Crime

Crime is the singular, dominant, and all-encompassing theme found in the novel “The Drop” by Dennis Lehane. Crime in the novel, which involves everything from moral crimes, to using and selling drugs, to gambling, to fencing for the mafia, to extortion and to murder, is committed by every character in some way or another. Indeed, crime becomes the basis for the plot. Almost no character in the novel is totally clean of some kind of crime.

The most obvious form of crime comes through the criminal syndicate run by the Umarovs, which in turn, runs the city of Boston. The organization handles everything from illegal betting to murder. The syndicate runs drops through the bars and businesses that it owns, and uses nominal owners as fences, such as Marv. Marv himself once ran a crew, but was faced with the choice of fighting the Chechens, or...