Gone, Baby, Gone: A Novel (Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro Series, 4)

I loved Tomas Harris' "Red Dragon" principally because the bad guy had deep reasons for what he did. We understood him, cared about him in a way, hoped against hope that he'd pull himself out of craziness--we looked forward to his death and felt his life's tragedy at the same time. The characters in Gone, Baby, Gone are comparatively simple and boring. Some of the important "bad guys" are so bad they have no redeeming characteristics. They're even horribly ugly. They have no backstory, they are simply evil and do incredibly horrible things because...well, for no reason really. Apparently that's just what evil people do. The narrator even tells us that it's pointless to try to understand evil. Then a character asks God "why all the evil?" and God seems to answer "it's beyond your understanding". For me, that's completely unsatisfying. If it's a universe where evil happens randomly, for absolutely no reason, why should I care more than I do about lightning or earthquakes? It lacks humanity and so is boring, ultimately becoming just a shoot-em-up mystery, with some shallow "should I follow the law or do what's right?" pondering thrown in.

I found Gone Baby Gone to be thought-provoking, dark, and disturbing. I liked the plot twists and the characters (especially the detectives, Patrick and Angie, and Bubba), but I think Lehane added chapters that were unnecessary and sensationalistic (the monster pedophiles). Those chapters did not add to the story. I sobbed after reading them and had serious doubts that I would continue the book. I did finish it because I felt compelled to find out what happened to the missing girl (Amanda), but I have to say if you are a parent, this is very difficult book to read.

If you have not yet ridden the Lehane Express, jump on board and begin at the beginning. The mystery/detective series with Angela Gennaro and Patrick Kenzie might be the best and most consistent in the genre. Again Lehane is at the top of his form and brings to the fore a terrific story with characters that just keep coming at you. The subtle undertones of the story give it depth and engage the reader from the first pages through the last.

A child is kidnapped and Patrick and Angie are hired to help the police to locate her. The mother, if you can call her that and you couldn't if she wasn't genetically connected, put her child in danger with her lifestyle and poor decisions. The story moves forward at a good rhythm and pace towards the spiraling conclusion. Characters are thrown under the bus as the story expands to take in all of the spin-off subplots.

I highly recommend this book with a 4.5 star rating, but I am going to round it up to a 5. I almost gave it an outright 5, but it would have to perfect for that, and as you might agree, there is one minor weakness in this story for me, but it's a spoiler and I do not give those out in a review.

The new sequel to this story is on my desk and I will be reviewing it shortly.

Don't read this book, unless you enjoy reading about cruelty to children, or you would like to take one copy out of circulation by throwing it in the trash! If you are hoping for a feeling of redemption at the end, as you usually get when reading a mystery novel, forget it. Unlike other Dennis Lehane books I've read, this book was a downer all the way through.

After reading Mystic River years ago and enjoying it, I was a little underwhelmed with Gone, Baby, Gone. Lehane obviously poses some serious moral issues and themes in this book, but the way he goes about pursuing and presenting such issues were less than stellar.

For one thing, the characters were lacking and flat, in my opinion. The dialogue between the police/detectives seemed to ring artificial and forced, often in the form of them speaking in this way where they are trying to one up each other with smart aleck responses. They were also lacking in any emotional depth (I really felt zero connection to the main character, or any other ones, for that matter), and often were hard to distinguish from each other. Their interactions, dialogue, conflicts came across as a big cliché or stereotype given their roles.

Not only that, but Gone, Baby, Gone goes way over the top in various ways. The absurd amount of violence and language seemed a bit overreaching. I know the author is trying to make it “realistic” but he takes it too far and seems to be going for “shock” value points. Additionally, the plot goes in such a direction in the second half that is quite improbable and unrealistic. Couldn’t really buy it.

Anyhow, this was overhyped, and failed to deliver. More summer beach reading than anything else.

Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro are two private investigators hired to find a missing child. The child is the daughter of a slovenly woman who was apparently as good a mother as a crocodile. It was the woman's sister-in-law who actually seemed more concerned about the child than the mother, and it was the sister-in-law who hired the investigators.

While I enjoyed the book very much, there were a few problems I encountered. In one part of the book the members of the police department are playing a football game. The play-by-play of the game went on for pages... and bored me to tears.

Also, it was somewhat annoying when all these other characters were thrown into the mix. They were all bad guys. At least I think they were. It wasn't always clear, since Patrick Kenzie seemed to be best friends with a few of them. In one scene, Kenzie actually accompanies one of them on an illegal gun sale to a horrible couple. Why would he do this?

Then, of course, there just HAD to be the gratuitous sex scenes between the two investigators. Stuff like that always annoys me. If an author considers himself a good enough writer to present a cracker-jack mystery, well written and intense, then why throw in the sex scenes? Do authors "get off" when they write these or something??? However, much as I think these types of inclusions in a novel are useless and irritating, I believe the author of this book didn't natter on about it without end. Blessedly, it was over rather quickly. (No pun intended there).

On the plus side, this truly was an extremely well-written book. The plot was tightly woven and as the story climaxed, finding out who the bad guys were totally blindsided me. Never saw it coming! I also liked the author's style of writing. The sentenses were all well-constructed, dialogue flowed smoothly, and sometimes the descriptions were priceless. For example, when Kenzie met a new person on the police force, the person was described as follows: "...his spine seemed forged of lead pipe and his lips were pale and too thin; in the flat whiteness of his face they appeared to have been etched into the flesh by a weak pencil." Now that's good stuff!

I have not read any of the previous books in this series. Neither have I read anything else by this author, but I definitely will in the future!

This is my first Lehane book, but it won't be my last. I am going to be teaching it to students in my university class, Aspects of the Novel, as a companion to The Big Sleep. Atmospheric, witty, definitely literary without being "intellectual." I think the students are going to love it.

I haven't been able to read Lehane in the past. The work is just badly done. 2-d characters. Long dull 'plots'. The novelization of "The Drop' was very good though. Partly because it's much shorter. So I gave this 40 or 50 pages. It's just unreadable. The author's on surer footing in novella form. He's in way over his head here. Nothing here is sustainable. You don't care about any of the 2 dimensional characters involved. Life's way too short for writing this poor.

"Gone Baby Gone" is one of those rare crime thrillers that will stay with you long after you've finished reading the last page.

For Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro's 4th outing, Dennis Lehane has chosen to chronicle the disappearance of four-year-old Amanda McCready, who is taken from her home in the middle of the night while her sorry excuse of a mother is out drinking with her next door neighbor. In typical Lehane fashion, what follows then is an intricately-plotted mystery that will keep you guessing till the end, an honest yet brutal portrayal of the ordinary and extraordiary citizens that populate the seedy underbelly of Boston, and an insightful look at the child custody laws of this country that are supposed to put the child's well-being at the top but do not always work out that way. Having seen the movie "Gone Baby Gone" and really liked it, I was afraid that I may not enjoy this book already knowing all the plot twists and turns. My worries turn out to be unfounded. Even knowing how it's going to end, I still found the book difficult to put down and thought that the ending packed an emotional punch that you're not going to find in the movie.

Again, a superb thriller from a superb writer.

Wow, so much goes on in this novel! Agree with other reviewer's adjectives- credible, chilling, compelling- I so wish there was a happy ending to this story! My sister was the nursing director at a children's psychiatric hospital for years and she had some harrowing stories to tell. Sometimes parents are monsters and their parental rights should be terminated. And pedophiles? They should be locked up so they cannot harm our children! What was the right thing for Amanda? I know what I thought- I agreed with Angie. Some of the wrong acts committed here were for the right reason. But then again, some of the well-intentioned acts could never be right! Raised so many questions with no easy answers. This book is going to haunt me for a while...