Mystic River

Under the guise of writing a murder mystery thriller, Lehane gives us an extraordinary exploration of human darkness. Three boys, eleven years old, are playing in the street and something happens. Something that refuses to 'unhappen'.

As adults they live very different lives. One's a reformed criminal. One's a copper. One is just surviving, unable to throw off the darkness of the childhood experience. They rarely meet until a teenage girl is murdered. As the investigation proceeds the intertwining of their lives becomes shrouded in suspicion and alienation. They are drawn together but repulsed from each other at the same time.

Lehane writes very realistic characters. His prose is masterful as he lays open the deep emotions of these three men and their families. The plot has few twist and turns, this is not Agatha Christie dropping everything into place at the very end, it is the people that matter here. We become engaged in the lives of these disparate people, we feel with them, and we feel committed to them.

My only frustration with the book was the time it took for the setup. As Lehane fills in the stories of the three, first in childhood and then as adults, it is not until 30% of the way through that the strands start to draw together. I was engaged with the book from the start but it was not until that 30% point that I was hooked.

There was another point late in the book that he hinted at the identity of the killer. The 'means, motive, opportunity' triplets appeared on the horizon but the final reveal pulled the rug from under that idea. In the end, and after experiencing the depth of suffering of the main characters, it is the utter mundanity, the meaninglessness of the murder that hits the hardest.

This is my second Lehane novel and it certainly won't be the last.