Rating: 
Summary: Portrait of Evil
Review: 300 children disappear each year and never return. Amanda McCready disappears from the neighborhood. She is four and a half. Once running away and abduction are ruled out, disappearance is a murder. The private detectives, Angela Gennaro and Patrick Kenzie, ask questions about the mother at a bar. The mother has been afraid to admit that she left the child alone and went there on the evening in question.
The private detectives speak with the police, but nothing good can come when a child has been missing for eighty hours. The mother passed a polygraph. The child lived in the middle unit of a triple decker in Dorchester. The missing child was taken to play T Ball by her aunt and uncle. Parents of some of the other players describe the youngster as unusually subdued.
The investigation continues. It is October and New England is brilliant with color at that time of the year. Police and PIs go to Charlestown to pursue leads where there is a code of silence. (The book is replete with street information and ties, the private investigator, Angie, lost her own father two decades earlier through a mob hit.)
It seems the officers are faced with a kidnapping since there is a ransom note, but the foursome, two officers and two private detectives, elects to proceed without federal involvement. One person who has bearing on the plot was victimized by schoolyard bullies and the author presents with ability a truthful rendering of such a character. Lieutenants of a crime syndicate seem to be ready to take over the rackets as their leader remains imprisoned and impotent. The kidnapped child appears somewhere in the equation.
The narrator, Patrick Kenzie, finds the uniformed state police officers to be agressively Teutonic. They enter the picture as a promise is made to produce the victim in an area of granite quarries. The Boston police, also present at the scene, are described as looking like the waiting room of a soup kitchen.
The Boston atmosphere is apt. The book is well done. The story is so sad.
Rating: 
Summary: Grim but good.
Review: A missing-child thriller with George V Higgins style wisecracking Boston cops and robbers and double double crosses..
It's the fourth in the Angela Gennaro/Patrick Kenzie series, with Kenzie as first person narrator. The action seems to follow on Darkness Take My Hand. I'd recommend starting with A Drink Before the War to get the background. They are recruited into the search by the child's aunt and uncle, while her airheaded junkie single mom seems to enjoy being the center of attention.
The dialog isn't quite up to George V Higgins but Lehane is a greater scene-setter with a gift for creating an atmosphere in half a sentence like "....light sleet fell and spattered windshields and stuck in our hair like lice."
There's a lot of blood and guts and horrific child abuse and murder. Not one happy camper in the book so it's a tad depressing in spite of the flashes of mordant humor.
The plot is complicated and demands attention (you might be able to figure out whodunnit by page 200) so it's best read in one or two sittings, which is difficult at over 400 pages. It's a page-turner but not good bedtime or beach reading. I'd recommend it for a long flight in coach class, or maybe if you're visiting Boston.
Rating:
Summary: WOW!
Review: Any voracious reader will occasionally find themselves playing what I refer to as "the library lottery"--stand in the middle of the library's fiction section, let their gaze drift over the amassed titles, and just grab a book at random, hoping that their choice will be, at the very least, a few hours' diversion. So it was one spring afternoon for me when my eyes fell upon "Gone, Baby, Gone." Dennis Lehane? Hmm, never heard of him. The cover blurb looked relatively interesting, and I do try to break out of my rut from time to time, so I brought it home.Three pages into the book, I knew I had hit the literary equivalent of the jackpot. "Gone ..." is the third Lehane novel to feature private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro, who are struggling with both their personal and professional lives together while they work to find a missing child. As with Lehane's other Kenzie/Gennaro books, it's not necessary to have read others in the series to follow Patrick and Angie's past, although enough references are made to make the reader want to seek out what came before. Lehane has one of the best feels for dialogue in modern fiction, and his plots are tight without being predictable. To the best of my knowledge, I'm one of the few who discovered Dennis Lehane with this particular book (the book I most often hear cited is "Darkness, Take My Hand," his second novel, which is also great). If you've never read Dennis Lehane, you will not go wrong with this or any of his novels. He's one of the best out there right now, and he's on the verge of becoming huge.
Rating:
Summary: Dark, suspenseful read
Review: Dennis Lehane brings his usual blend of dark humor and suspense to this story of a missing child, an addict mother, and a drug drop gone wrong. Lehane's work with abused children obviously contributes to the passion with which he writes about them in this gripping read. It was hard to put down, even though at times the grim details made me want to do just that.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best books in this series
Review: Gone, Baby, Gone is one of Lehane's best Kenzie/Gennaro books, even though its subject matter, the kidnapping and abuse of children, isn't particularly sunny. Patrick and Angela are called on to investigate the disappearance of four-year-old Amanda McCready, who lives with an awful, distracted, zero of a mother. Her inattention to her daughter and her needs is painted so vividly that it is easy to hope that, wherever she is, Amanda's life is somehow better. This disappearance leads the detectives into a morass of drug dealers and pedophiles and crooked police. Ultimately, it all leads to a gripping, heart-breaking climax that is pretty much a no-win situation for all involved. Sure, there are some contrivances in the plot that bring us to this point--as other reviewers have pointed out--but this is still one heck of a powerful book, with vivid characters and a real sense of setting and community. We can see how the neighborhood gives birth to monsters like Cheese Olamon and Angie's and Patrick's "friend" Bubba, while others choose another route for their lives. This is a step up from the previous book, Sacred, and shows Lehane getting ready for the powerhouse book to come, Mystic River.
Rating: 
Summary: The Emperor Has No Clothes
Review: I have reached the point of mystification with Dennis Lehane. After reading "Mystic River", I was very excited, thinking that I had found a great new American author. For someone like me who can literally read a book in just a few hours, this was a happy feeling, because I am rapidly running out of books to read! However (you knew there was going to be a however, didn't you?) ... "Shutter Island" was so-so, and THIS book was, well, just awful. How in the world did this guy write "Mystic River", which is a masterpiece and is technically flawless, yet crank out a limping book like "Gone, Baby, Gone"? At first, I enjoyed this book, as the pacing was fast, the story was fresh, the characterizations were right on, and the writing was technically tight. Then, around the time that the female sidekick breaks into a criminal's place to wire it (ummm .... OK), the story simply fell apart. I could no longer tell what the heck was going on. Then, even worse, the book started tasting dated, as Lehane threw in mid-90's and even early-90's references galore, such as references to Ren-N-Stimpy. What the ... ? I know he wrote the book mid-90's, but as every author knows, unless you are writing a historical novel, you don't put in pop references unless you want your work to age like brie from K-Mart. That is one reason why "Mystic River" will be around for centuries. There are no cheap pop references in it whatsoever. Then, Lehane gets on his VERY high horse about "save the children" or whatnot and the suspension of disbelief is wrecked. I agree with his sentiments but not with his heavy-handed writing technique. It just doesn't work. THEN, and IMHO worst of all, the female detective gets the baby-rabies, and starts moaning on and on about "creating a beautiful baby with love energy" or some such claptrap. It just made no sense at all. A hard-boiled private detective acting this way, with no warning whatsoever? Maybe if he had worked it into the story a little more, but as it stands, it's not plausible. Maybe if she was cracking up or something; I just don't know. He never explains or justifies it, and that's why I finally put the book down. I think this book may have been part of some MFA project of Lehane's, as it screams, "I have an MFA in creative writing!" I dunno about that though. All I know is that this book does not live up to the hype, and does not live up to the talent level Lehane displayed so beautifully in "Mystic River". If you like good writing, avoid this book.
Rating:
Summary: Lehane is the master of this genre.
Review: I stayed up last night and finished this book. It was like watching a very suspenseful movie. Not only is this a good murder/mystery, the character development is exceptional as well. I am anxious to read Prayers for Rain to find out what happens in the Angie/Patrick relationship. I highly recommend this author to those mystery/suspense buffs out there. You will put Dennis Lehane on top of your favorites list!
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, funny and a moral dilemma
Review: In the last 30 day I've read all five of Lehane' Kinzie/Gennaro books, finishing Prayers for Rain last night. Lehane has created a terrific franchise in the mystery/thriller arena with his realistic and (more importantly) entertaining pair of detectives. You like these people he's created and believe their motives for what they choose to do as they trek through the plot. Clearly I've found a lot of compelling entertainment in these stories. The first book in the series, A Drink Before the War, really [drew] me in, being in the same vein as the Elvis Cole series by Robert Crais which I also recommend. Both series are consistently well-written, a clear step (or two) above pop/trash/beach fiction, funny, intelligent stories where the plot make sense, and the characters seem frighteningly real. It turned out that the first Kinzie/Gennaro yarn was the lightest. Each one after has ratcheted up the twists and turns, but kept the personality of the characters growing and building. The stories definitely got blacker and bleaker in the depraved actions of the bad guys. By Prayers for Rain, the villain is a hardcore-fulltime psychopath, and Patrick and Angie are a-little-further-than-borderline vigilantes. After racing through five of the books in so short a period, I am struck with a sense of vulnerability. If some bad dude makes it their career to mess with you, and if they have no normal limits to their behavior, you're just [out of luck]. How can a normal, follow the rules type of citizen even comprehend the introduction of aggression and violence into their regular lives? Unless you have friends to help you out like Kenzie and Gennaro you might as well move out of the country and hope you're never found. Read these, you'll like them.
Rating:
Summary: Dark, suspenseful read
Review: Lehane's writing is good. That's what draws you in. But ultimately, like the movie Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone is unsatisfying. Not because its themes are dark, but because Lehane either does not know how or is afraid to honestly emote. I will not waste my time with him again. That simple. Read Lashner if you want a good writer.
Rating: 
Summary: Not soon forgotten
Review: Of the three Kenzie/Gennaro novels I have read, this was the most entertaining, if one can describe kidnapping of a child and abuse of kidnapped children by some of the most twisted people in our society "entertaining." Amanda McCready, a four year old, has been kidnapped and her aunt and uncle have sought out the dynamic duo to see if she can be found. They work out a tenuous and sometimes tense relationship with the detectives who are in charge of the investigation, yet little or no progress in finding the little girl occurs. At the half way point in the book, Patrick summarizes what they have accomplished (or not). "This was one of the most infuriating cases I'd ever worked. Absolutely nothing made sense. A four year old girl disappears. Investigation leads us to believe that the child was kidnapped by drug dealers who'd been ripped off by the mother. A ransom demand for the stolen money arrives from a woman who seems to work for the drug dealers. The ransom drop is an ambush. The drug dealers are killed. One of the drug dealers may or may not be an undercover operative for the federal government. The missing girl remains missing or at the bottom of a quarry." As it turns out, the answers are hiding in plain sight, yet it takes time, lives and luck to eventually come up with them. This is no Mystic River (few are) but, it is a good story, well told.
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