ABOUT THE BOOK:
Boston private detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro are hired to find four-year-old Amanda McCready, abducted from her bed on a warm, summer night. They meet her stoned-out, strangely apathetic mother, her loving aunt and uncle, the mother's dangerous, drug-addled friends, and two cops who've found so many abused or dead children they may be too far over the edge to come back. Despite enormous public attention, rabid news coverage, and dogged police work, the investigation repeatedly hits a brick wall. Led into a world of drug dealers, child molesters, and merciless executioners, Patrick and Angie are soon forced to face not only the horrors adults can perpetrate on innocents but also their own conflicted feelings about what is best, and worst, when it comes to raising children. And as the Indian summer fades and the autumn chill deepens, Amanda McCready stays gone, banished so completely that she seems never to have existed.
Then another child disappears. . . . Dennis Lehane takes you into a world of triple crosses, elaborate lies, and shrouded motives, where the villains may be more moral than the victims, the missing should possibly stay missing, and those who go looking for them may not come back alive.
MY REVIEW:
Gone, Baby, Gone by Dennis LehaneMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Gone, Baby, Gone by Dennis Lehane is a 2009 William Morrow publication. (originally published in 1999 by Harper)
I must make a few confessions up front:
1: I saw the movie version of this title a long time ago and it was so good, I’ve always wanted to read the book, because, of course, the book is always better.
2: I haven’t read as many books by this author as I thought.
3: This is my first foray into the Kenzie & Gennaro series. In fact, I didn’t even know this book was a part of a series, until now.
I make these confessions with shaking hands since I’m sure my admission is tantamount to religious sacrilege to some folks, but hey, you have to start somewhere.
I was immensely curious how the book would differ from the movie, since Hollywood is notorious for taking liberties and on many occasions they flub the whole thing up. But, surprisingly the book and movie matched up, with only a few differences.
All the same, the book was better, as I knew it would be, as it paints a far more detailed and emotional rendition, which had me enthralled, and gave me an even greater respect for this author.
When Amanda disappears, her Aunt Beatrice hires the PI team of Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro to find her.
The case winds up consuming the couple to the point of obsession, always at the forefront of their lives, and then another child goes missing…
Well, what can you say? This was one incredible story and one that has sparked some rather heated debate in my household, all of us holding strong feelings on how the situation could have been handled.
While there is the obvious black and white answer, there are surely those among you who fall into that gray area, where your mind and logic tells you one thing, while your heart is telling you another.
But, no matter which way you slice it, this is one very twisty rollercoaster ride, spotlighting human flaws, and what one does to cope with the world, and how there are never easy answers to many of life’s questions. Sometimes the wrong thing feels like the right thing, in a twisted way that only makes sense when you are living in that moment. Those choices could backfire, or not, depending on the situation, could lead to regret, or no regrets. But, a tangled web has been woven, and good people become unwitting pawns in a convoluted scheme, and a price must be paid, a very high price, as it turns out.
This story stayed with me a long time and I still run the details over in mind on occasion, still feel sickened by what happened, and still feel conflicted by the decisions made.
When a novel really grabs you, affects your emotions, plays tricks on your mind, and breaks your heart, leaving a lasting impression, well, that’s what great storytelling is all about, and this author sure knows how to weave a tale.
GONE, BABY, GONE MOVIE TRAILER:
GET YOUR COPY HERE:
https://www.amazon.com/Gone-Baby-Patrick-Kenzie-Gennaro/dp/0061998877/
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/gone-baby-gone-dennis-lehane/1100258485
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/gone-baby-gone-1
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Dennis Lehane (born Aug 4th, 1966) is an American author. He has written several novels, including the New York Times bestseller Mystic River, which was later made into an Academy Award winning film, also called Mystic River, directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, and Kevin Bacon (Lehane can be briefly seen waving from a car in the parade scene at the end of the film). The novel was a finalist for the PEN/Winship Award and won the Anthony Award and the Barry Award for Best Novel, the Massachusetts Book Award in Fiction, and France's Prix Mystere de la Critique.
