Mystic River

Rating:
Summary: A Throughly Engrossing Read
Review: In "Mystic River", Lehane captures the grit and fiber of blue collar Boston, while sucking the reader into a well-crafted "who-dunnit" that ranks with the top of the genre. Don't expect to find any of the popular "plastic" good guys and bad guys in Lehane's novels. In "River", the characters are deeply developed and meticulosly exposed in their flaws and weaknesses, adding to the realism and tension Lehane builds to the climax. While the more estute reader may figure the perp before the payoff (I didn't), the skill of the telling and the development of setting and character is sufficient reward.

Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary
Review: I became a fan of Dennis Lehane's when I first read "A Drink Before The War". My bookshelf is now graced with all his published offerings - and this is the astonishing book that tells us all that in Mr Lehane we have a prodigious talent.
"Mystic River" tells a story of ordinary lower / middle class people ( cops, wiseguys, mothers, fathers, daughters, sons ) caught up in an extraordinary circumstance - a circumstance that may have had its genesis in a child abduction incident 20 years prior to the action the book describes in such harrowing, sweaty detail.
"Mystic River" is, without a doubt, one of the better books in my personal library. It is neither an easy nor a comfortable read. But it is an extremely good read. In fact - Mr Lehane has come close to committing that most dire of sins for a popular author: he may well be literate above and beyond the call of the mob.

Rating:
Summary: Mystic River is a page turner!
Review: Lehane creates interesting characters that keep the story and the pages moving. I enjoyed this very much. My only red flags was the story using the main character's re-involvement with each other, twenty-five years after an intial event. This is an extreme and very unlikely coincidence. For me, I'd like to see him not beat around the bush, regarding the Boston crime/mob scene quite so much. Perhaps I know too much local information.

Rating:
Summary: An entrancing look at revenge and loss
Review: So many mystery novels out there are so terribly sub-par and uninteresting that at times I wonder why I bother continuing with the genre. The characters are lacking, the plot a cliched 'I've read this before' mess, and the endings tend to feel tacked on - as if the author just went for whatever would come as a surprise without regard to whether or not it makes sense. Then along comes a book like Mystic River and you remember just how wonderful the genre can be, when done right. Dennis Lehane is a master storyteller. His plot weaves through each character and subplot seamlessly, without making any element seem oddly out of place. His characters are the most well drawn I've seen in a while. Lehane allows you to crawl inside their heads and see why they are who they have become, and each of their actions has a reason, makes sense with what he has built them up to be. The psychological aspects of the characters are what really drive the book and make it so compelling - Jimmy's intense need for revenge on his daughter's killer, Dave's destructive trauma over being kidnapped as a child, and Sean's search for the killer has as much to do with justice as it does with the daughter he has never met. This book is amazing. I can't wait to read the rest of Lehane's books, if this one is any indication they'll be the best out there

Rating:
Summary: His first 5 books were great, this one was not.
Review: I must have gotten used to the main characters in his first five books. I was really disappointed in this one. Please Dennis, go back to the first characters for the next one.

Rating:
Summary: Noired-Up Yates
Review: After reading about a third of this novel, I had this thought: If Richard Yates had written about crime, this is the book he would have written. Those who know and love the works of Yates will understand that this is one hell of a compliment to pay to a genre author whose previous books are a series featuring the same detectives, a la Chandler, McDonald, Parker, Cornwell, etc., etc.

The compliment is well deserved. Lehane *knows* his characters, and that's what this novel is -- a character-driven story that also just happens to have phenomenal plotting. Mystic River is a family story, a crime story, a whodunit all rolled into one. It's dark as hell and darkly funny (Yates), violent in the right places (Pete Dexter, especially "Brotherly Love" not so much in language but in atmosphere), and in many cases, it's more of an Elmore Leonard-type of a story than a straight mystery, i.e., we sorta know what's gonna to happen, but it's incredibly compelling because we know these people. We care about them. This book's got a big heart.

And that's the biggest difference between Lehane and everybody else. Leonard is like Lehane Light emotionally, his works just don't resonate like this. You care about his characters, but you never get *this* involved, where you want to jump into the book to strangle one guy, slap another one awake, etc. Michael Connelly's stuff is close, but it's too much police procedural for my taste. Mystic River is the perfect blend.

I haven't read any other Lehane, but that's going to change, and change real soon.

Rating:
Summary: Noir with a capital "N"
Review: This is a very different type of mystery novel. The writing and the ability to develop characters and get inside of them makes this more of a "serious" work of literature, that just happens to be utilizing the mystery format. But Lehane is writing about the dark side and secrets that his characters have, and this is not a "follow the clues and get the bad guy" type of book. It is much more about the demons that drive and obsess each of the characters and it is a very dark, very noir kind of book.

You won't find the book light, cheerful and uplifting, but you also won't find this book forgettable. The book is probably more realistic than most books of this genre in portraying the demons, and some will find that good, and others will be disturbed by that reality.

Rating:
Summary: Incredible
Review: I'm not going to get into the plot here. A lot of the other reviewers have already done that. Bottom line is that if you haven't read any of Dennis Lehane's books yet, now is the time to start. If you have read him before, you'll be very briefly disappointed that he (hopefully temporarily) abandoned Kenzie and Genarro, and that disappointment will very quickly disappear with the realization that you are reading an incredible book. Every once in a while you will read a book that, after you've read it, you can't read anything for a few days because you are awestruck by the experience of having read that book. Mystic River is such a book.

Rating:
Summary: Dark, well written but not upllifting
Review: My favorite genre is mysteries and Dennis Lehane is in the Top 10 of favorite authors. Probably the same way the main characters in this book are compelled to do what they do, Lehane got this story idea in his head and couldn't do anything until he got it out of his system. I just wish it could have had a positive ending. The ending is probably more true to life, so my wish for happier says more about my tastes than the reality most people create.

It is extremely well written, but ultimately that wasn't enough for me. I lost interest in it as a mystery pretty early on and settled in to appreciate it as literature. It is a remarkable tale of turn of the century Boston. Although I like Boston a whole lot, I wouldn't want to spend one second with any of these characters the next time I visit. They're on a merry go round of their own making and are either too stubborn or too blind to evaluate themselves and get off so they can stop being at the effect of others. I found myself drawn, despite the slowness of the story, by the sparse and intense writing, onto the merry go round. I was glad when the ending let me get off. The book didn't get stronger, it seemed to get weaker. I found it overwritten.

Stark and dark realism, no matter how well written, doesn't do it for me any more. I'm glad so many people enjoyed as much as they did. I wish I had been one of them.

Rating:
Summary: Haunting and Riveting
Review: Reading is my passion. I have books piled up all over my room just waiting to be read. Although I enjoy most books, I read so many of them that often, by the time I'm halfway into a new one, I have already forgotten most of what I read in the previous book. But there are a handfull of books that made such an impression on me, that their stories stay with me long after I've finished them. Some, I doubt, I will ever forget. Dennis Lehane's "Mystic River" is one of those. I had only read one other Lehane book - "Praying for Rain" - which was a good crime thriller. Mystic River, however, is entirely different. It does involve a murder, but it is so much more than a crime thriller. It is a psychological masterpiece. The main characters, Dave Boyle, Jimmy Marcus, and Sean Devine, grow up as childhood friends. One day Dave suddenly disappears in a car with two men. He returns a changed and damaged child, but what happened while he was gone remains his secret. The book moves ahead twenty-five years. All three have now grown up, having taken completely different paths in life. When Jimmy Marcus' daugher is murdered, the story takes off as Sean, now a homicide detective, takes on the case. But the meat of the story involves the personal demons that haunt all three men, and the effects those demons have on their marriages, families and their lives. This is not a classic whodunit. Lehane does not throw out little tidbits to throw the reader off from guessing who killed Katie, the murdered girl. In fact, so wrapped up in the lives of the three men, their wives and families, that we almost don't care who the murderer really is. There is a lot of darkness in this book as Lehane deftly developes these tragic characters. But the book is not without humor - Lehane's writing is full of dry, acerbic humor. I found myself drawn to every character in the book - as flawed and damaged as they were. No matter what you think has happened, you want to reach out to them, especially Dave, whose live was forever changed that fateful day that he was taken away. This book will appeal to a large audience - for those who love a good mystery, and those who like their books deep, probing the characters' psyches. As I said, this book is still with me, and I suspect it always will be. Do yourself and favor and don't miss this wonderful, deeply moving book. It will make you think about your own life, and how "but for the grace of God go we" makes us realize how fragile our sense of security in our own lives really is. Read it and be moved!