Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane - BOOK REVIEW

Title:  Moonlight Mile
Author:  Dennis Lehane
Publisher:  William Morrow, an imprint of Harper Collins
Publish Date:  November 2, 2010
ISBN 10:  0061836923
ISBN 13:  9780061836923

Good Reads description:

Amanda McCready was four years old when she vanished from a Boston neighborhood twelve years ago. Desperate pleas for help from the child's aunt led investigators Kenzie and Gennaro to take on the case. The pair risked everything to find the young girl—only to orchestrate her return to a neglectful mother and a broken home.

Now Amanda is sixteen—and gone again. A stellar student, brilliant but aloof, she seemed destined to escape her upbringing. Yet Amanda's aunt is once more knocking on Patrick Kenzie's door, fearing the worst for the little girl who has blossomed into a striking, clever young woman—a woman who hasn't been seen in weeks.

Haunted by their consciences, Kenzie and Gennaro revisit the case that troubled them the most. Their search leads them into a world of identity thieves, methamphetamine dealers, a mentally unstable crime boss and his equally demented wife, a priceless, thousand-year-old cross, and a happily homicidal Russian gangster. It's a world in which motives and allegiances constantly shift and mistakes are fatal.

In their desperate fight to confront the past and find Amanda McCready, Kenzie and Gennaro will be forced to question if it's possible to do the wrong thing and still be right or to do the right thing and still be wrong. As they face an evil that goes beyond broken families and broken dreams, they discover that the sins of yesterday don't always stay buried and the crimes of today could end their lives.

My Take: I'm really loathe to admit it, but this is my first Lehane novel.

Oh my gosh!  I can hear the intakes of breath!  

I can hear you saying, "You haven't read Shutter Island?  or Gone Baby Gone? or Mystic River?  What kind of reader ARE you?"

Sadly, I'm a reader that can't get to all of the worthy books that are out there, because I'm only ONE reader :(

I actually DID see the movie "Mystic River" ... more than once, and I didn't KNOW there was a book, and I thought to myself, "Great movie!  I'll bet you the book would have been better!" 

BUT after reading this, when I walked into the bookstore today and saw another Lehane title, "A Drink Before the War/Darkness Take My Hand", boy, howdy!  It was in my hand faster than you could say "Greased Lightning"!

This is the first time I've MET Kenzie and Genarro, but I'll be on the lookout for the other books every time I'm shopping.  The blurb doesn't really do the book justice, you see.  I was on the sofa, and felt like reading, but didn't feel like getting up to get to the book that I was CURRENTLY reading, and this one was on the coffee table (I do that ... walk around the house with my current book and leave the next one in place on the table ... keeps me focused).  Well, once I opened this book, no other book existed for a while.

Patrick Kenzie is a P.I. (private investigator), currently working freelance jobs here and there.  He is definitely not politically correct.  He has a beautiful wife (Angie) and a cute-as-a-button four-year-old daughter.

Much of what I could tell you of the plot without spoilers is summarized in the publisher blurb, so I'll just tell you how the book made me feel with a little plot thrown in here and there.

I felt shades of Sam Spade, not in the concrete sense (this story is in the here and now, and Patrick is not a taciturn, one-line kinda guy), but in the nuances and in the manner that Patrick faces even dangerous situations with equanimity.  He has a shady best friend named Bubba who doesn't mind slapping guys on the side of the head (or worse), if they are being moronic, but is a true friend and a loyal uncle to Patrick's daughter.

We have Amanda, a perfect, but aloof student - the product of a neglectful mother, who did all of her own legwork to get admitted to a prestigious high school .. on the fast track to Harvard, Yale, Brown, or wherever she decides to go in spite of her mother's horrible influences. 

Sophie, a girl from school, is full on "Single White Female" mode.  She idolizes Amanda, and you never see one without the other.  

Suddenly Amanda is missing, and when Beatrice, her aunt, tries to get the police to look into it, Amanda's mother denies that she is gone and the police even say they talked to Amanda herself.

We have the Russian mob, and a meth dealer who specializes in identity fraud, and a henchman that makes you laugh, and quite a few twists and turns, and more laughs (really!  I mean, I know it's a mystery, but the dialogue is FUNny!  I love irony and sarcasm and dark humor, so ...)  There's so much going on, and you're not really certain where everything is headed, and then you get a clue almost towards the end, but .. you're not really certain what that clue means .. and then, BAM!  Lots of action and a great ending.  

You don't have to be a mystery fan to eat up this book.  If you like drama, or romance, or suspense, or Mafia types, or humor, this book is one for you!

Is it deep and dark and all like intellectual? Ummm .... no .. it's just fun ... I like fun. 

QUOTES:

If you see __ where there should be letters .. this is in consideration of any of my sensitive readers.

"I barely hit him."
"You blew one of his hips off."
Bubba said, "He's got two."

The Beast was the son of Angie's friend Peggy Rose -- or PR. Gavin Rose was five years old and, to the best of my knowledge, never slept and never stopped breaking sh_t.  He also enjoyed screaming for no good reason.  His parents thought it was cute.

"Which I appreciated."  He nodded.  "But plenty of recent studies have shown that it's our coddling of pubescent children in this country that contributes to an extended adolescence and arrested development."
"I still can't believe they canceled that show," I said. "It was genius."

I looked over the seat at her.  "I'm thinking how I've never had the impulse to hit a woman in my life, but you get me in an Ike Turner frame of mind."

Sensitive Reader:  There's cursing, and shooting, and some people die.

Book Rating:  4.5 out of 5 (the extra .5 is for all of the times I laughed out loud)

Disclosure:  I received an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) of this title from the publisher to facilitate my review.  I was not compensated in any other fashion and any opinions expressed are truly my own.