Gone, Baby, Gone by Dennis Lehane
The harsh Dorchester area is not for the naive or the weak. Hard heads and even harsher luck characterize its domain, and the ruins of ruined families, hearts, and hopes litter its streets. One of its younger members is now missing. Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, two private detectives, are not interested in the case. But in response to pleading from the child’s aunt, they launch an inquiry that would ultimately put everything at risk—their love, their sanity, and perhaps their lives—in an effort to locate a lost young girl.
Gone, Baby, Gone by Dennis Lehane
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This is a superbly written thriller that actually exists. I consider Dennis Lehane to be one of the top thriller authors currently working in America. This is one of the first books in his Kenzie and Gennaro series, which features a male and female private eye team headquartered in Boston. In the 1990s, he authored five books with them in them.
They are incredibly action-packed, fast-paced books. The fourth book in the series, Gone Baby Gone, is the one I think is the finest. They turned it into a movie that received favourable reviews. A four-year-old child is taken from a residence and vanishes without a trace in this story.
When the police hunt for the young girl turns up nothing, her uncle and aunt employ Kenzie and Gennaro to look for her. Even though it all happens over the course of approximately a year, the tension is tremendously raised. A few months later, another youngster goes missing under similar circumstances, and things pick up speed immediately.
In the end, Kenzie and Gennaro find a merciless network of pedophiles in addition to disturbing police corruption. Lehane does a good job at advancing the plot, though occasionally not in a straight line.
In the course of their hunt for the young child, Kenzie and Gennaro become entangled in quite distinct investigations. One really good action sequence stands out as the best one I’ve ever read. I won’t go into too much detail, but it occurs in the middle of the book and is incredibly well-written in terms of the suspense it creates and how it is put together. You have a 25-page scenario in this old, gloomy house that will stop you in your tracks, and you simply have to read the book to understand how fantastic it is.
