Mystic River

Rating:
Summary: A fine mystery. Keeps the suspense until the end.
Review: Like any fine mystery novel, "Mystic River" keeps who wondering until the end. Unlike many mystery novels, "Mystic River" is also a fine book about friendships past and present.

The three main characters in the book grew up together and have gone their separate ways over the years. Although they rarely see each other any more, an event from the past still binds them together, and in the end will likely tear them further apart.

Highly Recommended!!

Rating:
Summary: movie just about here
Review: I picked this book up at the bookstore noticing it was soon coming out as a movie.This was my first dennis lehane book and wont be my last.
Starts out in 1975 in a part of boston known as the flats and the point with three kids sean devine jimmy marcus and dave boyle are looking for something to do when jimmy has the bright idea to take a car and go for a joyride mind you these kids are around eleven . In the process they get into a fight amongst them selves in the middle of the street when a car stops and a man gets out appearing to be a police officer he take dave boyle puts him in the car and dave is gone for 4 days only to be found again with some terrible things done to him.Now it fast forward to the year 2000 and somethings have changed and some have not with sean devine being a cop,jimmy being a hood who does time and now owns a corner store and dave boyle worring about his job and decaying neighborhood when there lifes are all brought together again when jimmys daughter disappears and is found murdered.All three have demons they are chasing from that fateful day when dave was kidnapped.But as you read trough the book you will find things are not as they all seam . This was a good read which you must read ot the end will see how the movie turns out Read this beofre you see the movie

Rating:
Summary: My new favorite author
Review: This is the first Lehane book that I've read, and if his others are half as good as "Mystic River," I've discovered my new favorite author. This is an absolutely fantastic read, beautifully written, truly suspenseful, utterly poignant. I can't remember the last time I've devoured a book this quickly, or enjoyed one this much. I couldn't recommend "Mystic River" more if I tried.

Rating:
Summary: Painfully poor prose...
Review: This was the first...and will be the last...Dennis Lehane book I ever read. I have never heard anyone (state cop, townie, or otherwise) from Charlestown, Somerville, Southie or Revere utter a phrase like:

"Show some respect for your elders, Joseph, or we might send you back to working the crystal meth corridor around Springfield, hanging out with bikers and chicks who smell bad, eat lard straight from the can." (p. 257, if you must know!)

Hasn't that cop-busting-other-cop-down-to-meter-maid schtick become a pretty time-worn cliche by now? Oh wait...Lehane gives the description 21st century freshness by throwing in lard eating.

It doesn't even sound right with a Boston accent.

Lehane deserves a little credit for coming up with hundreds of ways an emotion can manifest itself as a sensation in one's chest. For example:

"Jimmy looked over Nadine's head at Annabeth and Sara, felt all three of them blow through his chest, fill him up and turn him to dust at the same time."

"The nails found his chest, a fat, cold grouping of them as if shot from a cannon, and he wanted to shut his eyes but they were nailed too, nailed wide open, as the van reached the middle of the street and Jimmy stared at the car it had been blocking..." [and on and on and on that sentence goes]

"She pretty much knew then, as small clumps of wet sand drizzled inside her chest..."

Every few pages you'll find some reference to pain, fear, anguish, panic, guilt, hurt, sadness, woe, strife, anger, ennui, rage, and/or frustration described as crushing, piercing, grinding, pummeling, shredding, needling, slicing and exploding of/in someone's chest.

Mystic River is nothing more than overwraught, tedious writing that kills what could have been a good mystery and leaves the reader feeling the stony fingers of mild irritation grip his or her chest like a large hand belonging to a prehistoric animal with no conscience and unbridled evil in its blood, at the thought that he or she shelled out eight bucks for this book.

Whaddya know? I just pulled a Lehane! NYT Best Seller List, here I come!

Rating:
Summary: Superior in every way
Review: "Mystic River" is equally as haunting and intense on the second read, as it was the first time. Dennis Lehane places you right in the middle of the Boston working class neighborhood.

It is a powerful, gritty, superior work of crime fiction---urban noir at its finest.

Honor, violence, guilt, trauma of youth and revenge frame the story line---and the plot twists are revelations of character.

Violence split three friends apart, and it is violence that reunites them over twenty years later. The violence is both physical and psychic. The violence and vengeance have unintended consequences.

The characters are complex, enigmatic, ambiguous, perplexing and steeped in Catholic guilt. They come alive from page one with all their flaws, anguish, torment and personal demons.

The whodunit is cleverly resolved, but "Mystic River" is much more than just a mystery story. Mr. Lehane takes you into the individual minds and souls of the players. You experience their pain, know their motivations as well as their flaws and choices.

"Mystic River" is unforgettable and is etched in my mind.

Rating:
Summary: An American tragedy.
Review: If you decide to read Dennis Lehane's "Mystic River," be sure that you have no pressing appointments. I stayed up late into the night finishing this nearly five-hundred-page novel. Lehane tells a story so compelling that I blocked out my surroundings and was completely drawn into the the author's fictional world.

"Mystic River" takes place on the mean streets of Boston. It starts in 1975 with three eleven-year-old boys named Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus, and Dave Boyle, who occasionally hang out together. Suddenly, a terrible event occurs that marks one of the boys for life and that will have far-reaching consequences for all of them.

Lehane fast-forwards to the year 2000. The three boys are now men, and one of them, Sean Devine, is a homicide detective. When a young woman is brutally murdered, Devine investigates the crime, and once again, the lives of the three boyhood friends intersect under tragic circumstances.

Lehane masterfully crafts every character in this book. We get to know Jimmy Marcus as a volatile individual, a loose cannon who loves and hates with equal intensity. Dave Boyle is a wounded and vulnerable man, as brittle as glass. Sean is a lonely and arrogant workaholic. All of the secondary characters, including the men's wives and children, are also well-drawn. In "Mystic River," Lehane explores the dark side of people's psyches that they rarely show to the outside world. The civilized facade that some people present to their friends and neighbors may mask deep and poisonous feelings. When provoked, a person who seems perfectly ordinary and sane may suddenly turn into a monster.

This novel is also noteworthy for Lehane's meticulous and atmospheric description of the Irish-American neighborhoods where the action takes place. He constructs the intricate plot expertly and consistently maintains a high level of suspense. I recommend "Mystic River" unreservedly. It is a shattering and unforgettable reading experience.

Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece!
Review: To say Lehane's lyric is magical understates this brilliant piece. Beginning with the first page, the reader can not help but succubm to the reality and depth of each and every character. This book is sure to captivate not only your mind but also your heart. Breath taking!

Rating:
Summary: Sounds familiar
Review: Sounds sorta kinda like the true story 'Sleepers' by Lorenzo Carcaterra. I recommend 'Sleepers'. I don't have anything real positive to say about Mystic River.

Rating:
Summary: Not a single word wasted
Review: The writing in this book is so tight. There are no unnecessary descriptions, extra characters, or false-sounding dialogue. The dialogue is truly Lehane's strong suit. Sometimes I just stopped reading and thought, wow, this guy knows how people talk. Most writers know in their heads how people talk, but as an amateur story writer, I know how difficult it is to make dialogue sound realistic on paper. These characters ceased being just characters because they seemed so completely believable and real. That was largely due to the excellent dialogue. To those reviewers who said that there was too much profanity in this book, I have to ask: where do you live? In Mr. Rogers' neighborhood? That is how people talk, especially cops and people who live in working-class neighborhoods. An absence of profanity would have been glaringly obvious and made all the characters seem unrealistic.

The facts of this novel have been summarized by other readers, and I will not repeat the summary here. I would like to comment on the ending, without revealing anything. I did not realize the identity of Katie's murderer until right before Lehane revealed it. This was a stroke of genius, since as I have said, there is not a superfluous character in this novel. The murderer is right there in front of you all along, and his or her identity makes perfect sense once it is revealed. Lehane doesn't trick his audience, there are no scams or false clues; sometimes the most obvious culprit is right there in front of you.

I also found the epilogue to be disturbing and ambiguous. Jimmy's character in the epilogue and at the end seems to be so different from what it has been throughout the rest of the book. But when you look at some of the earlier observations about his character, you realize that Lehane played fair and that the ending is not a stretch. Again, a masterpiece.

As many reviewers have noted, this novel is not neatly pigeonholed into the "mystery" category. It is instead a full-bodied novel addressing many themes: people's ability to change; destiny and fate; and class warfare. There are no easy answers, but that is just one more way in which this novel is realistic: in real life, there never are. I can't wait to see this movie.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent writing, so-so ending
Review: The characters literally live and speak as real human beings - that's how good the writer is. You already know what the story is about - the film should be interesting. My main problem is the believability of the killer and how things are TOO neatly tied up at the end. Aside from that very minor flaw, this is a must read for anyone interested in fine writing of any genre.