Product Description

In a dangerous battle of wits Kenzie and Gennaro track down a killer whose insidious murder weapon isn't a gun or a knife but instead the merciless psychological manipulation of his victims until despair finally drives his targets to kill themselves.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #199546 in Books
• Published on: 2000-07-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Prayers for Rain is Dennis Lehane's fifth instalment in his intricately plotted, beautifully written and much under-acknowledged Boston mystery series. Lehane's books reflect our morally complex times, when the borders between right and wrong are somewhat blurry.

Private investigator Patrick Kenzie is in the middle of a personal crisis--he's lost his passion for the profession and is tired of people with their "predictable vices, their predictable needs and wants and dormant desires." Angie Gennaro, his occasional sweetheart, lifelong friend and fellow investigator has quit the business. She's still deeply resentful about Patrick's handling of the Amanda McCready case, the focus of Gone, Baby, Gone. Without Angie, private investigating has lost its fizz.

The suicide of a former client, Karen Nichols, gives Kenzie his investigative itch back. Six months earlier, Kenzie tracked down a stalker who had been harassing Nichols and put an end to his heinous hobby. But Nichols needed more help than this PI could ever have imagined. "She'd been drowning and I'd been busy." The successful, middle-class young woman had been sinking into a sea of drugs, alcohol and prostitution, hitting the bottom when she jumped from the Boston Custom House. Her death consumes Kenzie--he is convinced that someone pulled her into the vortex, although her nearest and dearest simply call her weak.

Kenzie teams up with his explosive, loving, gun-toting friend Bubba Rogowski, and, after a boozy reunion, Angie Gennaro joins them. This fearless threesome must surely be the most original team in contemporary crime fiction. Good at the core--but seriously screwed up by various demons from their pasts--tact and decorum is hardly their style. They work their way across Boston, doing whatever it takes to question Nichols's family and acquaintances. By unveiling the real Nichols, tragic family secrets, betrayals and conspiracies are also unmasked.

If you haven't experienced Dennis Lehane's world before, be prepared for an invigorating new reading experience. --Naomi Gesinger

From the Back Cover
When Boston private investigator Patrick Kenzie meets Karen Nichols, she strikes him as an innocent from a protected upbringing, untouched by tragedy. But six months later when Karen takes her own life, Patrick is left wondering what can alter someone so drastically and so quickly that suicide seems her only option?

Through the final weeks of a stifling summer, and with the help of his ex-partner, Angela Gennaro, and his friend, the lethally unbalanced Budda Rogowski, Patrick enters into psychological warfare with a brilliant sociopath who, instead of merely killing his victims, prefers to make them wish they were dead. Their game of cat-and-mouse brings them face to face with the sordid secrets of an affluent family, a brutal mafioso, a cabal of twisted kidnappers and a perilous encounter in the misty dark of cranberry bog. As the stakes grow higher and more personal, they find themselves fighting a losing battle with an enemy the law can't touch, who is always one step ahead, who is gradually discovering their weaknesses, their loves, and is determined to tear their world apart.

About the Author
Dennis Lehane
Dennis Lehane is the author of A DRINK BEFORE THE WAR (which won the Shamus Award for Best First Novel); DARKNESS, TAKE MY HAND; SACRED; GONE, BABY, GONE; PRAYERS FOR RAIN and MYSTIC RIVER. A native of Dorchester, Massachusetts he lives in the Boston area with his wife, Sheila, and their two English bulldogs, Marlon and Stella.

Customer Reviews

Dark and all to Real
Things haven't been going well for Patrick Kenzie, so when Karen Nichols hires him to get a stalker off her back, he doesn't give it his best effort. Then when Karen commits suicide he's consumed by guilt. With Angie and Bubba with him on the case, Patrick learns that there was more than a stalker in Karen's life and now all three of them are in danger.

This book is best read after the others in the series, but it is a stand alone novel. And like his other books, Lehane takes us on a ride to the dark side of human behavior, but he's such an excellent story teller that we're there before we know it happened. There is a lot violence here and it seems all too real, so real it's scary. Lehane paints his people with the brush of truth, his descriptions with the brush of fact. A five star book if ever there was one.

Review submitted by Captain Katie Osborne

Good story which is full of pace
This was a bit hard to put down, quite frankly, and I finished it in two sessions.

Parts of the plot are pretty improbable, but the story moves very well with characters who are easy to warm to. Good doses of wit too, here and there.

In short, Lehane has done little wrong, in my view, with this very good thriller.

There's enough room for a sequel here, so it will be interesting to see if he does follow through.

Prayers for more please !
I read a lot of books and review them all on Amazon. Usually I am reluctant to award 5 stars to any book but this book deserves all the stars it can get. Wonderful story , well written , well observed , likeable and believable characters. What else could you ask for I can't wait to sample more from this author