- Hardcover: 416 pages
- Publisher: William Morrow (Jan 18 2001)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0688163165
- ISBN-13: 978-0688163167
- Product Dimensions: 24.4 x 15.7 x 3.7 cm
- Shipping Weight: 635 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (359 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #528,027 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Ever since blasting onto the literary scene with the Shamus Award-winning A Drink Before the War, Dennis Lehane has been the golden boy of noir. His Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro novels are marvels of tight pacing, dialogue so good it gets under your skin and stays there, with dead-on portrayals of working-class Boston neighborhoods. Sure, he's the oft-proclaimed, hard-boiled heir to Hammett and Chandler, but Lehane also takes a page from the Hemingway school of hyper-intense writing. He pares away and pares away until he's left with the absolute essentials--and then those essentials just explode off the page.
In his five Kenzie-Gennaro novels, the detective duo is at the nexus of Lehane's big bang. Darkly funny and just this side of jaded, Angie and Patrick move through Dorchester's bleak streets with an assurance born of familiarity. It's impossible to imagine these streets without the pair, or to imagine the pair away from those streets. Mystic River, then, arrives as a bit of a gamble, as Lehane moves from the sharp edges of portraiture to the broader strokes of landscape. No Angie, no Patrick: this neighborhood is on its own. It's not any prettier and certainly no friendlier, and its working-class façade still barely masks the irresistible tug of violent ways, means, and ends.
Twenty-five years ago, Dave Boyle got into a car. When he came back four days later, he was different in a way that destroyed his friendship with Sean Devine and Jimmy Marcus. Now Sean's a cop, Jimmy's a store owner with a prison record and mob connections, and Dave's trying hard to keep his demons safely submerged. When Jimmy's daughter Katie is found murdered, each of the men must confront a past that none is eager to acknowledge. Lehane tugs delicately on the strands that weave this neighborhood together, testing for their strengths and weaknesses; this novel seems as much anthropological case study as thriller.
By turns violent and pensive, Mystic River is vintage Lehane. How good is it? You may go in missing Angie and Patrick, but after a few pages you won't even realize they're gone. Lehane's noir is still black magic. --Kelly Flynn
From Publishers Weekly
Lehane ventures beyond his acclaimed private eye series with this emotionally wrenching crime drama about the effects of a savage killing on a tightly knit, blue-collar Boston neighborhood. Written with a sensitivity toward character that exceeds his previous efforts, the story tracks the friendship of three boys from a defining moment in their childhood, when 11-year-old Dave Boyle was abducted off the streets of East Buckingham and sexually molested by two men before managing to escape. Boyle, Jimmy Marcus and Sean Devine grow apart as the years pass, but a quarter century later they are thrust back together when Marcus's 19-year-old daughter, Katie, is murdered in a local park. Marcus, a reformed master thief turned family man, goes through a period of intense grief, followed by a thirst for revenge. Devine, now a homicide cop assigned to the murder, tries to control his old friend while working to make sense of the baffling case, which involves turning over the past as much as it does sifting through new evidence. In time, Devine begins to suspect Boyle, a man of many ghoulish secrets who has led a double life ever since the molestation. Lehane's story slams the reader with uncomfortable images, a beautifully rendered setting and an unnerving finale. With his sixth novel, the author has replaced the graphic descriptions of crime and violence found in his Patrick Kenzie-Angela Gennaro series (Prayers for Rain; Gone, Baby, Gone) with a more pensive, inward view of life's dark corners. It's a change that garners his themesAregret over life choices, the psychological imprints of childhood, personal and professional compromiseAa richer context and his characters a deeper exploration. Agent, Ann Rittenberg. (Feb. 6) Forecast: Given the excitement in-house at Morrow that this is Lehane's breakthrough book, and the promotion they're placing behind it, it stands an excellent chance of leaping straight onto the bestseller lists. A one-day laydown, $250,000 ad-promo and an 11-city author tour, plus a blurb from Michael Connelly designating Lehane as "the heir apparent," should provide the groundwork for explosive sales. Rights have been sold in the U.K., France and Germany, and there will be a large-print edition as well as an audio from Harper Audio.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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First Sentence
WHEN SEAN DEVINE and Jimmy Marcus were kids, their fathers worked together at the Coleman Candy plant and carried the stench of warm chocolate back home with them. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
WHEN SEAN DEVINE and Jimmy Marcus were kids, their fathers worked together at the Coleman Candy plant and carried the stench of warm chocolate back home with them. Read the first page
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant,
By J.E.L. (British Columbia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Mystic River (Mass Market Paperback)
A superbly written, character-driven story. Rich and meaty, like a scrumptious steak dinner (that's if you're not a vegetarian, of course), Mystic River is the best novel I've read in a very long time. Shutter Island was also terrific. I wish more authors could write like this.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing,
By Booklover "bOOKLOVER" (Montreal, Quebec Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Mystic River (Mass Market Paperback)
I found this book to be just amazimg. There is so much going on this book as well as the characters are three dimensional not one dimensional. In addition to being mystery, it is an exploration of friendships past and human nature. At the beginning of the book we are presented with Jimmy, Sean, and Dave and with the one event that changed everything in their lives and friendship. Later on in the book, with Jimmy's daughters death, the author explores how they three will interact. This is a gripping book and it never lets. All through the book, we come back to that one event that changed their lives forever.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Eastwood Cries a Better River,
By Lala Vegas (Toronto, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Mystic River (Paperback)
I don't often come across a book that I like less than its movie adaptation, but Mystic River happened to be one of those books. Just because an author can elaborate with thousands of words - it doesn't mean that he should, and this incredibly drawn out story made me wish for the exactness of gifted authors like Graham Greene. Clint Eastwood did the story justice though - and his portrayal of the characters was exactly what the audience needed to know...
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