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Summary: An overnight read!
Review: In this book about lost childhood and wasted adulthood, Dennis Lehaine pulls the reader along through nightmares and reality. I truly could not put the book down longer than an hour. It was realistic and frightening at once. Friendship, family, and marriage are all explored from inside out. I believe the characters will speak to many others, as it did to me.
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Summary: Not even done yet!!!!!
Review: I have read half of Lehane's Mystic River. I can't put it down. It is so sensitive, detailed in character and characters. Very different from his earlier series. I really love this side of his writing and how he really gets to the feelings of the main characters and their families. It just doesn't get any better than this.
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Summary: Dennis Lehane's Mystic River
Review: This is really a sad, sad book. Unlike his past works (and, by the way, Angie, Patrick and Bubba are not in the book), where there was a certain sense of confirmation that someone did something worthwhile, this is not the case in Mystic River. When I read that Dave had been taken away by two men (as a child), I sensed that something bad was going to happen and when he came back four days later, molested, I knew it wasn't the kind of book I should read! But, I read it anyway. Dave was tormented by his demons and and he was known as "the boy who was taken away". In the end, his demons destroyed him. The book showed a dark side of Lehane that had not been revealed in his other works. I suspect that people do not want to read about what they consider unpleasant things. They prefer to sanitize the really distasteful things about life. For them, books become avenues for escape.
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Summary: The world has found Dennis Lehane....
Review: Kenzie/Gennaro are two of my favorites in the mystery genre, but I enjoy it when authors who have more to offer than just one stream of thought are brave enough to depart from their own mainstream. Lehane does not disappoint, and I could not put the book down - went to work 45 minutes late as a result.... Looking at the incredibly versatile group of "customer reviewers" who have already echoed my own thoughts, I would just say that Lehane tells a stark story of lives wrapped together in such a way, that a collision is unescapable. Although the same suspense that follows his mystery series is present, I believe that Lehane has gone beyond the boundaries of mystery into the early waters of 21st century literature. Jimmy & Annabeth Marcus are unforgettable, the supporting characters believable and complex.. a great read!
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Summary: Wow! What a ride!
Review: That is exactly what I said after I finished reading the last sentence of this book.Mysteries are usually not my favorites, and I almost dropped this book after reading the first few pages(I'm glad I didn't). It's a slow starter, but it speeds up fast ( I usually read a book a week. I read this book over a weekend). Great story, great character development, great writing--I cared what was going to happen to everybody! The usual description of the book (one boy gets into a stranger's car, and two others do not) does not convey the crisis adequately. It's more that, our lives can change dramatically based on the everyday choices we make. This was my first Dennis Lehane novel, who appears to be at the peak of his craft. I really hope he wins some major awards for this book--it's that good. The characters in this book--Sean, Jimmy, and Dave, their families, and the choices they make are unforgettable. Grab this book as fast as you can and prepare to enjoy the ride!
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Summary: Threads Tracing Through Our Lives
Review: In recent weeks this book has calmly stepped up bestseller charts, originating as a sort of independent bookstore nugget. Lehane is visible author who, among other things, is famously enjoyed by Stephen King, although I think Lehane's talents lie on a shelf very different from King's. This review will not greatly sum up plot - this book is most of all an unraveling and an undressing and its magic lies in the tease. I would be doing a disservice by revealing the dancer ahead of time. Three childhood acquaintances, all from an enclave of working class Eastern city neighborhoods, have their lives changed by an event in adolescence. They grow up and apart, emotionally and spiritually, if not geographically. The murder of daughter twenty-five years later brings their spheres back to communal orbit. In the second act we are re-introduced to the characters as grown men, all either cresting or receding from a cycle in their lives - the grocer is at the top of his game, until his daughter is murdered; the cop is in a slump, through which the crime shuffles him. I see it as a book about the cycles of life as expressed through their changes and instants, lines defined by points and apexes - peculiar, dramatic moments that make us who we are. The father who loses his daughter speaks of threads tracing through our lives, which when pulled create snags we cannot fully repair. The work is well done, and whatever stylistic roughness or overused devices (and there are a noticeable few) they are belied by Lehane's committed empathy and confidence in his characters. This is an author's meditation. Lehane loves these characters - this is so plaintively evident. He loves the ficto-Bostonian neighborhood he has created, and while not written in first person the book has a distinctly thorough understanding of what these people are, main and supporting characters alike. He is at home in the world he has made in this book, as noir and existentialist as it may be. Ultimately, patience and empathy illumine a book about dark forces that live on the outskirts of life and pass shadows over us from time to time. Over all, I was led to wish that I could contain my rare moments of pause, those seconds when Frost's paths less traveled come to mind, and capture a moment of insight; its mystery sensed instead of slipped through and the flavor enhanced. If we had the ability to extend what for most of us is just a brief sense of the possibility of an alternate universe, then we would write this book, or some version like it that speaks to our soul and experience. And it is the inner life of the soul and what other souls it brushes as we move through this place that Lehane has created - as an author he grasps the geography of the soul as well as of the world. Additionally, if you are Boston Irish, or Boston working-class and understand the day-to-day inner life of the northeast urban blue-collar neighborhoods, this book will speak to you in a way that few have been able to. One final note: do not start this book on a busy day. You stand a good chance of not getting anything else done.
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Summary: Simply spectacular.
Review: I do not know what I can add that has not already been said about the terrific work except: if you read only one book this year, make it "Mystic River." It is noir and hardboiled with a touch of darkness. I was seduced from page one. It centers around three imperfect men in imperfect situations where each one tries to be less than imperfect in their individual approaches to a solution. The journey from the setup in their youth to the resolution thirty years later is enthralling. The story flows without pause. The characters, their environment and families are fully developed. The whodunit aspect is spectacular in its completeness and logic. Mr. Lehane keeps you changing your mind as you attempt to add up the clues to arrive at a solution. I admit that I came late to the Dennis Lehane party only last year with "Prayers for Rain" and "Sacred." He is a consistent writer, and the good news about my belated discovery is that I still have two Lehanes to read this year. "Mystic River" would make a great movie. I see Ray Liotta, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon as the three principles.
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Summary: Compelling
Review: Knowing that the usual cast of characters would be absent from Lehane's new book, I wasn't sure what to expect. Suffice it to say that I was pleasantly surprised and constrained to keep turning the pages of this work which so compellingly captures another facet of Lehane's gift for writing. Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus, and Dave Boyle have been friends since childhood. One summer when they were boys, Dave was kidnapped and something in him changed forever. 25 years later, Sean has become a homicide detective and Jimmy has become the owner of a neighborhood store after a stint in prison. When Jimmy's daughter, Katie, is brutally murdered, Sean is assigned to the case. Jimmy is becoming obsessed with thoughts of vengeance before Sean can even complete his paperwork and, in the meantime, neither of them knows that Dave came home covered in blood the night of the murder. The threesome's friendship, marriages, loyalties, and the very fabric of their lives will be severely tested and forever altered before the shocking conclusion of this dark and complex story. This novel is highly recommended whether you're already a fan or this is your first Dennis Lehane.
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Summary: Thought I'd be bummed, but oh man...
Review: Was so excited when amazon emailed me that a new Dennis Lehane book was coming out, immediately checked it out and was so disappointed that it wasn't a Kenzie-Gennaro book. When it came out, I didn't buy it. Thought, no, I want an Angie & Patrick book. Kept seeing that this one was getting great reviews, and decided maybe I would relent and read it, but didn't know if I would buy it in hardback. Then, a friend (whom I had told about Lehane in the first place) read it and told me that it was great. So, as we were leaving town I picked it up from her, and it was sooooo great! The characters are great, the story is great, and now Lehane has created yet another story primed for serialization, and I'm not sure which one I want him to come out with next. Please, if you love Lehane, or are new to him, go and get this book now!
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Summary: OUTSTANDING
Review: If possible, lehane has produced a better feature than his kenzie/gennaro series. please forgive any spelling or grammatical errors on my part as i spent 2 sleepness nights finishing this violent, dark and completely enjoyable entry. writing this novel in 3rd person gave full perspective on the characters as a whole rather than the 2 distinct heroes in kenzie/gennaro. there is no "star" of this book other than the entire neighborhood structure. still cant wait for the next kenzie book but this certainly satisfies.
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