Rating: 
Summary: Unsettling
Review: If this book is purporting to be a description of what awaits English society, reportedly behind the USA by ten years or so, God help us. Minus the superheroes, this is the tough, horrible world where consequence follows consequence without mitigation or mercy.All the characters here have never achieved stability - this is a theme in many of the other books - they just keep stumbling, over and over again, because there is nothing outside the world they are so obviously trapped in - certainly no hope at all within it. How horrible to be there - but there are traces of this all over the place. Revealingly, while I'm writing this, there are 91 copies of this, no less, for sale. I can se why many people would feel very uncomfortable with this book. The bad guys WIN, and the people left have much less than when they started. This nightmare world of violence, 16 year old boys becoming fathers, murdered kids, fringe psychotics just ...left.. in society because no-one can spot them or do anything anyway, was just starting to roar into life when I was a kid. The message needs to be said though. I think there may be people who need to read this badly, but I strongly suspect they won't. From experience I do know that there are people about who really do believe that they can "buy themselves out of" the trouble that comes to people stuck in these neighbourhoods, and move far, far away, but of course, the truth is that you never can. Beware.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing Departure from Kenzie and Gennaro
Review: Have you ever watched a movie or read a book where you could see the ending about a third into it? The characters and story hurtle towards this (usually disappointing) destination and you keep hoping at the last minute the writer will change course. But at the end you get the ending you expected. While it is said it's the journey that matters and not the destination, in a mystery the destination is kinda important. In Mystic River, Lehane develops three principals to the hilt. The murder mystery is actually kind of peripheral. Lehane uses it to send his main characters to a point of collision. Unfortunately this point is seen from far off and comes as no surprise. The murder is ridiculously easy to solve -- From the Matlock and Murder She Wrote School of Killers that are Side Characters with a Motive. Once that piece falls into place, one can easily see where Lehane wants to go in his tragic tale of three childhood friends. And while Lehane does his usual excellent job of drawing his characters, he does something in Mystic River that bugs me. He switches between the points of view of the three main characters. However, he not only conceals the true nature of one of them while telling the story from his perspective, but also purposely misleads the reader. It made everything ring false and is a total cheat.
Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: This is just a great book - maybe one of the best crime fiction books of the last twenty years (or at least that I've read). I can't say enough about it. Mystic River is one of those books as a reader that you love and as a writer you envy and wish you could've written. Even with some great writers like George Pelecanos and Michael Connelly, I have to think Mystic River puts Mr. Lehane at the top of his generation. -Dave Zeltserman, author of In His Shadow
Rating: 
Summary: Tossed it in the garbage after 80 pages
Review: I purchased this book based on rave reviews, and the fact that it was a New York Times bestseller. It started off with a reasonably compelling premise, then slowly lost my interest. After 80 pages I realized I was totally disengaged. The writing is pretty vulgar, and the story wrapped around the goings on of a blue collar neighborhood that I found equally depressing and unstimulating. I soon realized I was investing valuable time into a story whose outcome couldn't have interested me less(inherant to a "mystery" novel is that one should care how it ends) On the other hand, if I was in solitary confinement and Mystic River was the only book available to me, I'm sure I would have finished it.
Rating: 
Summary: About boys and wolves
Review: At first it reads like a thriller, but this novel is beyonde that. Rather than a whodunnit, Dennis Lehane's 'Mystic River' is a book about human condition. Yes, there is a crime, an investigation, some false hints, but they all are supporting roles in this novel. To me, what the author really wants to show is how impotent facing a tragedy. The book follow some years in the lives of three childhood friends, that grew apart after an incident. One of them was kidnapped by two men --and may have been abused. And while his two friends could have done something to avoid the act, they didn't. The two boys grow up with the feeling of guilt, while the other grows up a bit messed up. Years later, the murder of a girl will bring them together again. This is a novel that will please both thriller and drama fans. It reachs both levels with no flaws. There is a crime to be solved, and there are people living their lives. All characters go though a transformation, and nobody ends the book the same way he/she began. Very recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Dark and Psychologically Haunting
Review: What a great read, Dennis Lehane is one hell of a writer. For those that compare Michael Connolly to Dennis Lehane, that is like comparing White Zinfandel to an Estate Cabernet. Connolly tries too hard to manipulate his stories, most of them come off cheap, way too contrived. Lehane just flat out writes and it is enthralling, too believable. This is a psychological journey into the dark minds of three men who were friends as kids and were pretty much separated for 25 years, until the death of one of their daughters brings them back together. It has everything you want in a mystery but so much more. This book is rich but the treasures are not pretty, some haunting images will follow. But read it, its fast paced, hard to put down and very entertaining even if it does put you in a bad place for a while.
Rating:
Summary: Not to be missed!
Review: What a great book! The mood of the book is carried throughout the book. You can almost feel the darkness that the characters bring with them off the page. The characters are deep, moody and complex. It is not an easy ending to figure out. This book is not for those who enjoy light reading. The book begins with one of 3 boys being kidnapped and eventually escaping. How this event touched each of them is slowly developed as the story unfolds.
Rating:
Summary: Review by Author of Tagger, Along Along the Mystic River
Review: An excellent and suspenseful story that explores the interpersonal relationships among strong characters. The imagery of the Mystic River is almost tangible.
Rating:
Summary: Not to be missed
Review: This is simply one of the best thriller written. If you like Lehane's other books, you'd love this one.
Rating:
Summary: Yep, they're right.
Review: I read the reviews on the cover making it sound like some sort of literary masterpiece. I'm thinking...a mystery, ya, ok, sure. It's an intelligent read, & it's one of the best mysteries, in the true sense, I've ever read. You really can't figure this one out until you're meant to. You have to read this book. You really do. The author knows something of the streets and of poverty, not to mention yuppies & their stifling, encroaching ways.
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