Mystic River (Mystic River - Dennis Lehane)

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Product:	Mystic River - Dennis Lehane
Date:	12/09/03 (245 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: **

Disadvantages: **

Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus and awkward hanger on Dave Boyle grew up together in a blue collar district of Boston. When they were 11 years old one of the boys was abducted within sight of the others with long reaching consequences for them all.

My library has placed a handcuffs sticker on the spine to denote a detective story. However, Dennis Lehane's Mystic River is much more. An absorbing novel as well as detective story, this book also becomes ultimately a pschychological thriller which drew me on through its 500 pages without any loss of impetus.

The abduction is a prologue and we return to South Boston 25 years after the incident with Sean, Jimmy and Dave still living and working in their old community. When a brutally savage and apparently random murder is committed Sean, now a member of the state homicide squad, is drawn into an investigation which from now on would heavily involve himself, Jimmy, Dave and their families.

Jimmy has now left a criminal past behind and is a respected member of the community and loving father and husband, while Dave battles with a dark and secret part of himself hidden even from those closest to him. On the night of the murder Dave Boyle returns home to his wife soaked in blood which is clearly not his own. Reluctantly accepting that he has defended himself from a mugger, Celeste disposes effectively of all evidence, although later she is to sink beneath her own misgivings which are to be the cause of further violence.

This is not a roller coaster cut to the chase page turner, rather Lehane takes time developing his story and, although the reader is led to see a probable outcome, I was happy to go along for the ride. Lehane has the gift of making each of his supporting characters of equal significance and this book is their story as well. As we weave through relationships within the separate families along with the homicide investigation, our sympathies
and conclusions swing as the plot deepens and entangles.

We travel with Sean as he attempts to solve the recent killing and old mysteries come to the fore in consequence. What happened to the father of Brendan Harris (boyfriend of the murdered girl)? Did he walk away all those years ago and is he still alive? What does Jimmy Marcus know about Ray Harris' disappearance and how does Brendan's younger mute brother fit within the present homicide investigation? Will Jimmy's grief-stricken desire for revenge result in another killing? Is there yet another murder to be discovered and how will this affect the present investigation?

For me Mystic River has no heroes or heroines, just ordinary people caught up in an appalling crime which touches them all in different ways. Jimmy seems to have left the wild unpredictability of his youth behind as he has his life of crime and Dave, despite his gauche boyhood, was destined to became a popular high school baseball star. Along with Sean the trio have slipped into adulthood and gone their separate ways linked only by the dark memory of the abduction and its immediate aftermath. Yet this traumatic event and the effect on its victim was to lead to confusion and further tragedy 25 years on.

I have deliberately kept from giving more detail in this review as it would take little to include spoilers and I do recommend Mystic River as a good read. This is not a book of twists and turns, rather the reader is led from wondering to certainty and back, while becoming involved in the lives of the characters. The denouement, however, is unexpected and comes too late to prevent the violent loss of another life.

This is the first book written by Dennis Lehane which I have read and I shall look for him again. Lehane has a powerful talent for description and atmosphere and I left my comfortable familiar surroundings for those of The Point and The Flats.
Both these lesser districts of Boston shaped the young lives of Jimmy, Dave and Sean and seem the perfect backdrop for our drama. I felt that a recreation of these scenes would possibly make a good movie It seems that I may be correct and a film of the book is due out in October 2003 with an impressive cast. I shall look forward to it .


The paperback edition may be bought from Amazon for £5.59.

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