You Can’t Go Home Again, Can You? - Dennis Lehane’s Moonlight Mile
Book Review
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
Moonlight Mile, Dennis Lehane, published by William Morrow, 2010
Although I am usually mired in old time hard-boiled literary and black and white film detectives (or private investigators which is what most of them call themselves) like Sam Spade, Nick and Nora Charles, Philip Marlowe and the like I occasionally, usually on the recommendation of some avid crime novel aficionados of which there are many, including an unexpectedly large number of women, will take a tip and give more modern PIs a run through. Such efforts are made easier like in the book under review, Moonlight Mile, when the locale of the action, or most of the action are streets and sites in the Greater Boston area which I have walked or have some historic connection to and therefore have a sense of connection with what is going on.
So it was with some interest that I read this crime novel, connected with the locales around Boston including the Latin School over on Louis Pasteur Avenue where one of the main characters, Amanda, had been a crackerjack student ready to move on to greater things with the cache that a Latin School education brings with it, and has for the past three hundred plus years. I also vividly remember the Irish Dorchester triple-decker streets all huddled together providing little or no space to breathe, for Amada to breathe, to think one’s own thoughts in the squalor that he mother’s life bequeathed to her. Also the hard-boiled Irish Southie streets of un-blessed memory with their heavy-handed corner boys and their insularity, ready to pounce on every stranger who threatened that status. And from a later period I remember the old Brighton student ghetto now shared with Little Kiev, elements who like the Irish and Italians before them are as savage to make their mark as any earlier immigrant tide. So, yes, I know those mean streets, know them well if now somewhat memory faded.
As I mentioned I picked up this Moonlight Mile on a tip which as I found out initially from reading the book jacket is part of, or was part of, like many such crime novels an on-going series starring PIs, Pat and Angie, and as usual with such series many of the characters from previous books. I confess that although I have seen the film adaptations of Mystic River, Gone, Baby, Gone, and Shutter’s Island this is the first novel of Mr. Lehane’s that I have read. As it turned out this book is actually a sequel to Gone, Baby, Gone taking place some years later when the kidnapped child of that story, Amanda, is in high school and ready to face a bright new world, except she has gone missing again. Mr. Lehane had provided enough background information though a couple of the characters involved with the kidnapping so that if one has not read the earlier book or seen the film you can still get a pretty good idea what happened back then, and get and inkling as to why Amanda has vanished from sight.
The earlier scenes as I said involved the kidnapping of Amanda by relatives who thought her mother was unfit to raise her. Pat and Angie had been brought on board to find her after the police dropped the ball on the case. They had found her living happily but wound up bringing her back to her mother even though they know that she was unfit. That unsavory ending caused a split between Pat and Angie for a time. Now the pair get a chance to make things right if they can find her. Of course Amanda is not only bright but has somehow gotten herself involved with a crowd of over the edge Ukrainian gangsters that nobody in their right minds would want to tangle with. See among their other criminal activities this gang is working the baby-snatching racket. And Amanda whom is eventually found by Pat and Angie out in rural Western Massachusetts has one of the babies slated for adoption, slated to be adopted by the ruthless king hell king of the gang. No good can come of this between Amanda super-intelligence, the gang’s ruthlessness and Pat and Angie’s perseverance and grittiness. Read on to find out why.
Book Review
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
Moonlight Mile, Dennis Lehane, published by William Morrow, 2010
Although I am usually mired in old time hard-boiled literary and black and white film detectives (or private investigators which is what most of them call themselves) like Sam Spade, Nick and Nora Charles, Philip Marlowe and the like I occasionally, usually on the recommendation of some avid crime novel aficionados of which there are many, including an unexpectedly large number of women, will take a tip and give more modern PIs a run through. Such efforts are made easier like in the book under review, Moonlight Mile, when the locale of the action, or most of the action are streets and sites in the Greater Boston area which I have walked or have some historic connection to and therefore have a sense of connection with what is going on.
So it was with some interest that I read this crime novel, connected with the locales around Boston including the Latin School over on Louis Pasteur Avenue where one of the main characters, Amanda, had been a crackerjack student ready to move on to greater things with the cache that a Latin School education brings with it, and has for the past three hundred plus years. I also vividly remember the Irish Dorchester triple-decker streets all huddled together providing little or no space to breathe, for Amada to breathe, to think one’s own thoughts in the squalor that he mother’s life bequeathed to her. Also the hard-boiled Irish Southie streets of un-blessed memory with their heavy-handed corner boys and their insularity, ready to pounce on every stranger who threatened that status. And from a later period I remember the old Brighton student ghetto now shared with Little Kiev, elements who like the Irish and Italians before them are as savage to make their mark as any earlier immigrant tide. So, yes, I know those mean streets, know them well if now somewhat memory faded.
As I mentioned I picked up this Moonlight Mile on a tip which as I found out initially from reading the book jacket is part of, or was part of, like many such crime novels an on-going series starring PIs, Pat and Angie, and as usual with such series many of the characters from previous books. I confess that although I have seen the film adaptations of Mystic River, Gone, Baby, Gone, and Shutter’s Island this is the first novel of Mr. Lehane’s that I have read. As it turned out this book is actually a sequel to Gone, Baby, Gone taking place some years later when the kidnapped child of that story, Amanda, is in high school and ready to face a bright new world, except she has gone missing again. Mr. Lehane had provided enough background information though a couple of the characters involved with the kidnapping so that if one has not read the earlier book or seen the film you can still get a pretty good idea what happened back then, and get and inkling as to why Amanda has vanished from sight.
The earlier scenes as I said involved the kidnapping of Amanda by relatives who thought her mother was unfit to raise her. Pat and Angie had been brought on board to find her after the police dropped the ball on the case. They had found her living happily but wound up bringing her back to her mother even though they know that she was unfit. That unsavory ending caused a split between Pat and Angie for a time. Now the pair get a chance to make things right if they can find her. Of course Amanda is not only bright but has somehow gotten herself involved with a crowd of over the edge Ukrainian gangsters that nobody in their right minds would want to tangle with. See among their other criminal activities this gang is working the baby-snatching racket. And Amanda whom is eventually found by Pat and Angie out in rural Western Massachusetts has one of the babies slated for adoption, slated to be adopted by the ruthless king hell king of the gang. No good can come of this between Amanda super-intelligence, the gang’s ruthlessness and Pat and Angie’s perseverance and grittiness. Read on to find out why.
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