Mystic River

Mystic River
by Dennis Lehane

As I've said elsewhere, a cheesy book can be made into a great film. While I would hesitate to call the film Mystic River great, or the book cheesy, it is the breakout work for a man who has written some pretty standard stuff in the past. Mystic River, which deals with the fallout from one horrible crime committed in the 1960s, has moments that play false, and one narrative trick that I find cheating: if you are in the head of a character for large portions of the book, it's unfair to your reader to hold back portions of their thoughts that are extremely relevant to the story. In small doses you can do that to build suspense, but the way Lehane goes about it feels cheap to me.

What Lehane does well is explore the total grief of a family that experiences a huge loss. Some of the chapters can be hard to read because of this. And, with the exception noted above, the three central characters are wholly formed. The book ends well: even though all the questions are resolved, I'd love to read about what happens next. Sequel?