Dennis Lehane
Gone Baby Gone (1998)
Author: Dennis Lehane
Genre: Mystery/Suspense (Private Investigators)
Plot Summary:
At the beginning of this novel,readers are introduced to Helene McCready, the drug-using, neglectful mother of Amanda, a four-year-old who was abducted from her bedroom. Angie Gennaro and Patrick Kenzie are hired by Helene’s sister-in-law because the police have been unsuccessful at locating the child. Angie and Patrick begin to work with Broussard and Poule, two Boston cops assigned to the case. Helene leads the detectives to the house of drug dealers where the detectives find corpses and a ransom note. The four detectives, having all experienced cases in which abducted children were later found dead, decide to meet the abductors without notifying the police department of their plans. When they show up to meet the abductors, they are met with a barrage of bullets and the ransom money is stolen from them. Angie and Patrick follow multiple leads that they think will uncover the secret to Amanda’s disappearance but are disappointed several times when a potential suspect is found dead with no murderer in sight. To make matters worse, a second child is abducted. SPOILER: After a year has passed and Angie and Patrick are still stumped as to what could have happened to Amanda, Patrick notices something strange about Broussard and begins to investigate further. In the end, we find out that Broussard orchestrated Amanda’s kidnapping, the theft of the ransom money, and committed several murders throughout the investigation to keep from being caught. Before his death, Broussard admits to kidnapping several children from neglectful parents to place them with loving families. Amanda is returned to an unreformed Helene at the end of the novel and Angie moves out of the home she shared with Patrick because she is unable to come to terms with the decision to return Amanda to an uncaring mother.
Geographical Setting: Boston
Time Period: 1997-1998
Series: Fourth book in the Kenzie and Gennaro series
Appeal Characteristics:
This private detective story, which is narrated in 1st person by Patrick Kenzie, contains characters who are well-developed and realistic. Detailed descriptions make the story vivid and the personalities of unique secondary characters are brought out through the use of description and dialogue. As a result of the suspense created by the search for Amanda, the reader will find that they have trouble putting the book down. Lehane keeps the reader guessing at the secret to Amanda’s disappearance and there are plenty of twists and turns on the way to discovering the motive behind the abduction. This book will appeal to readers who enjoy mysteries that examine the psychological aspects of crime and detection.
Read-alikes: Readers who enjoyed Gone Baby Gone may want to read the other titles in this series: Drink Before the War, Darkness take my Hand, Sacred, and Prayers for Rain. All four of these works feature detectives Kenzie and Gennaro. Fans of this work might also enjoy Lehane’s popular non-series novel, Mystic River.
Readers who enjoy Kenzie and Gennaro’s toughness and also a story which features a male and female private detective team might enjoy S.J. Rozan’s series which features a team of private investigators solving murder and kidnapping cases. Readers who enjoyed the suspense of the kidnapping plot in Gone Baby Gone may enjoy Rozan’s Reflecting the Sky, which features the pair of detectives involved in solving a kidnapping case in Hong Kong. Similar to the vulnerable side of the detectives in Gone Baby Gone, the detectives Lydia Chin and Bill Smith also struggle to come to terms with the violence they witness frequently on the streets of New York City. China Tradeis the first novel in the series.
Readers who appreciated the development of the characters in Gone Baby Gone may appreciate the John Marshall Tanner mysteries by Stephen Greenleaf. This series, which begins with Grave Error, features a detective who, like Kenzie and Gennaro, has a compassionate side and this, as a result, may cause the reader to question what can be defined as right and wrong in the situations the detective faces. Plots in this series involve investigations of murder, kidnapping and blackmail.
Readers who liked the theme of the detective having to decide for himself what was morally sound, may enjoy Robert B. Parker’s Spenser series, which is also set in Boston. Like the detectives in Gone Baby Gone, Spenser seeks to bring justice to a violent, morally corrupt world. Similar to Gone Baby Gone, novels in the Spenser series feature strong supporting characters and realistic and witty dialog, which seems to drive the story. Several of the novels in the Spenser series, such as Early Autumn, feature investigations of crimes against children.
Novels in the Charlie “Bird” Parker series by John Connolly, such as Dark Hollow : A Novel, will appeal to fans who liked the pyschological angle in Gone Baby Gone. Dark Hollow features a private detective tracking down a missing person in another violent New England city. This series will appeal to fans who enjoy the suspense of the Kenzie and Gennaro series and the elegant prose of Gone Baby Gone.
Red Flags: References to prostitution, rape, drug use, child abuse and molestation, murder, and brief descriptions of conditions of corpses
Mystic River (2001)
Author: Dennis Lehane
Genre: Mystery/Suspense (Psychological Thriller)
Plot Summary:
The books kicks off with an introduction to Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus and Dave Boyle in the summer of 1975 as the three East Buckingham boys play together in this poor Irish neighborhood near downtown Boston. One fateful day, while caught up in a petty fight on Sean's street in the Point, the boys are suddenly approached and chastised by two men in a dark Plymouth, ostensibly police officers. To avoid the humiliation of being delivered home by the police, street-smart Jimmy evades their snare by lying that he lives just down the street, although he (like Dave), actually lives 12 blocks away in a poorer area of East Bucky called the Flats. Dave however is cowed by the men and ends up stepping into the car with the two child molesters, not seen again until his escape four days later. The abduction of Dave is the hinge of the novel, and at the point of his return, we fast-forward to 2000, where the rest
of the novel takes place over just a few days.
Sean is now a state police homicide detective with quiet marital problems, Jimmy is a reformed ex-con with secrets, a corner store, a 2nd wife and 3 daughters, and Dave a washed-up high-school baseball star with a wife and young son. The events of the summer of 1975 created a riff between the characters, who have all but lost contact in the years since. When Jimmy's oldest daughter Katie is discovered murdered at age 19 in a park in East Bucky, the men are brought together again in a complicated web of crime and karma. Sean has been assigned to this case and as he and partner Whitey struggle to unravel the clues of this seemingly motive-less murder, Jimmy falls back on his street connections and hunches to avenge his daughter's death. Dave, in a tragic coincidence, arrives home covered in blood the same night as Katie's death; he's dealing with his own demons, and losing the trust of his wife, Celeste - Jimmy's 1st cousin. The families are brought together during this time of grief, although tension and suspicions grow in light of Dave's small lies. He can't bring himself to admit his shameful urges and is fast becoming a prime suspect in Whitey's eyes. SPOILER: Although we know already that Dave is not Katie's murderer, Celeste confesses her suspicions to Jimmy, who gets to Dave before Sean can inform him that the killers have been captured. Dave is thus murdered in cold blood by Jimmy for the wrong crime (he'd killed a child molester, not Katie). So who killed Katie? Her boyfriend's mute younger brother and his friend, all of which turns out to have been a random, senseless act of violence by two kids. Katie's boyfriend Brendan and his brother are the sons of a man named Just Ray, whom Jimmy knocked off nearly two decades ago, a crime never discovered let alone brought to justice. Celeste is tormented by the results of her own disloyalty, and the violent death of Just Ray finally comes full circle.
Geographical Setting: Boston
Time Period: First two chapters are set in 1975; the rest is present day (2000)
Appeal Characteristics:
This novel contains a gritty, hard-boiled realism that transports the reader easily and completely into the insular, asphalt jungle of East Bucky Flats. The characters are authentic and well-developed, absent all extraneous detail. Nearly all characters have some sort of appealing or sympathetic aspect, and are very likeable despite some major personality flaws. The dialogue is convincing, at times offering a dry humor. This story of crime and murder is morally problematic in terms of penance and retribution, and while justice is ultimately served, karma is not sympathetic or forgiving. The criminals, not the crimes, are at the real heart of this novel, and while the reader knows before the end who is guilty of what, the tension lies is seeing how justice will be delivered. While Mystic River allows for the police detective investigation of a traditional mystery and the detail-focused portrayal of a thriller, the reader is ultimately compelled to turn the page to find out how the race for truth and justice will be decided (but not resolved). Truly a genre-bending novel with plenty of compelling plot twists and turns, and characters with real stories to tell.
Read-alikes: Darkness, Take My Hand (Dennis Lehane) second in Lehane's series books featuring the Kenzie/Gennaro detective duo. Set in Boston (although the story line runs in another direction), this novel is similarly rendered with well-developed characters, plot twists and secrets that make this another psychological thriller worth trying. In a 2001 Bookreporter interview, Lehane lists one of his biggest literary influences as being Richard Price. Clockers (Richard Price) carries a similar story line of a jaded detective working with (and against) street criminal in solving a murder, this might be a good recommendation to someone who enjoys police procedurals, full characterization and the gritty realism of the urban setting in Mystic River. Blues for Charlie Darwin (Nat Hentoff) might be another good suggestion for someone who really liked the sharp, flowing dialogue of Mystic River. This book is another police procedural set in the east coast (New York) who must make the connections of a loose string of crimes in the city. Derailed (James Siegel) - another contemporary murder mystery that continues the harsh themes of sexual crimes, robbery, murder, and betrayal - set in New York. Jolie Blon's Bounce (James Lee Burke) - this contemporary police procedural follows the investigation of the brutal murder of a young girl in a southern setting this time of New Orleans. May also recommend books by Pete Dexter, William Kennedy and Graham Greene - a few of Lehane's reportedly biggest influences (www.bookreporter.com).
Red Flags: Recurring theme of pedophilia, references to street crime,
prostitution, drugs and adultery, dense with profanity and violent imagery (and to a lesser extent, sex), vivid descriptions of murder
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