By Bill Forry
Managing Editor

If Gone, Baby, Gone - the movie- is anything like the last film based on one of his novels, then Dennis Lehane will count himself as one lucky S.O.B.

The Hinckley Street native says he already feels like a "lottery winner". Clint Eastwood's 2002 adaptation of Mystic River was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Two of its main actors- Sean Penn and Tim Robbins- took home Oscars in '03. More importantly, the film is something that Lehane looks on with admiration - and relief.

"It took me about a year to realize it, because I was way too close to it. I'm exceptionally pleased," Lehane says of Mystic River, the movie.

Not that Lehane takes much credit for the outcome. Mystic River- like Gone, Baby, Gone- or any Hollywood retelling of a book, he says, is like "a $40 million Cliff Note of your book. It's not your book."

And that, Lehane says, is okay with him. He has a Zen-like ability to let go of his Baby, in part because he makes peace with the separation long before the cameras start rolling.

"The moment you sell the rights, it's out of your hand. If you don't want that, then don't sell it," Lehane says. Plus, he notes, the book and the movie business have about as much in common as an "apple and a giraffe."

"I'm always really clear that I never let thoughts of a film intrude on a book," Lehane says. "They're both narrative art forms, but beyond that... a book is about active engagement, one reader at a time. A film is passive engagement."

Still, Gone, Baby, Gone is a much different animal than his first go-round with Clint Eastwood and company. "Buckingham"- the neighborhood that served as the setting for Mystic River- was a fictional amalgamation of city neighborhoods- and much of it was shot on location in East Boston. Gone, Baby, Gone hits much closer to home. Like all of his "Patrick and Angie" novels, the main characters are from Dorchester. They live, work, eat and drink there too, often in environs that are drawn right out of Lehane's own memories of 1980s Dorchester. In his novel, while some of the place names are changed when the narrative gets too bloody, locals typically have no trouble deciphering Lehane's shorthand.

"Usually with the Dorchester novels, they're pretty close to home. Patrick always calls it 'the avenue', never Dorchester Ave."

Much of the time, the Dorchester references are pretty explicit: "Except for Patrick's church," Lehane notes. "Everyone who grew up there knows exactly what it is. The idea was, let this be a fictional place, but there are winks in there for folks from the parish."

"I have one friend from the neighborhood who asked me, 'Where does Patrick live? Is it around this street?'

"I said, 'No. It's your house.'"

So far, Ben Affleck and his team seem to be following the Lehane playbook, at least in choosing locations. In the last week, the film crew has spent much of its time on location on Semont Road near Saint Mark's Church and on Crescent Avenue, steps away from Lehane's boyhood home.

"That was our place- where East Cottage meets Pleasant," Lehane says. "The Ryan playground, the Blakie, the Russell School. Those were all our stomping grounds and they become Patrick's (the main character in Lehane's Dorchester-based detective series) stomping grounds, too."

Tom English's pub on Dorchester Ave. The (old) Ashmont Grill in Peabody Square. The Dublin House. As he wrote his early Dorchester-set novels, all served as models for Lehane.

"The old Diane Controls building next to Ryan Playground, that's Bubba's warehouse," he says. "We used to play wiffle ball in the parking lot there."

And, of course, there's Patty's Pantry: "That's where Patrick goes to get his coffee every morning," Lehane confirms.

While he has has virtually nothing to do with the filming so far, Lehane says he feels comfortable with the Affleck brothers- Ben and Casey in the lead role as "Patrick Kenzie"- at the controls.

"Ben brings a Boston sensibility and Casey being from Boston as well, I don't think any of that hurts," Lehane says. "(Ben) was pretty much steering the ship early on and it's been several years now. I stepped back and said, 'If you want me, track me down. If you don't, that's totally cool as well.'"

Up next for Lehane: an anthology of short stories is due out later this year. And he continues to work on a historical novel set during the epic Boston Police strike of 1919. After spending a year teaching at Eckerd College- his Florida alma mater- Lehane recently returned to his permanent home in West Roxbury and expects to be making a number of local appearances in the coming months. One will be a fundraiser for the Dorchester Historical Society's campaign to restore the Blake House, Boston's oldest structure, which has survived nearly four centuries of blizzards, hurricanes, fire, and pick-up baseball games.

"I'm sure I owe them a couple of windows," Lehane says.

Down the line, Lehane expects to do at least more installment in the Dot-based "Patrick & Angie" series.

"Mostly, because I miss them," he explains.

"I think what's happened over time was I began to look at the city as a whole," Lehane says. "I think if I have a literary province it's the neighborhoods, the ring around the Hub. When the stories take me to Dorchester, that's where I go."