Product Description

There are threads in our lives. You pull one, and everything else gets affected. When they were children, Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus and Dave Boyle were friends. But then a strange car pulled up their street. One boy got in the car, two did not, and something terrible happened - something that ended their friendship and changed all three boys forever. Twenty-five years later, Sean Devine is a homicide detective. Jimmy Marcus is an ex-con who owns a corner store. And Dave Boyle is trying to hold his marriage together and keep his demons at bay - demons that urge him to do horrific things. When Jimmy Marcus' daughter is found murdered, Sean Devine is assigned to the case. His personal life unravelling, he must go back into a world he thought he'd left behind to confront not only the violence of the present but the nightmares of his past. His investigation brings him into conflict with Jimmy Marcus, who finds his old criminal impulses tempt him to solve the crime with brutal justice. And then there is Dave Boyle, who came home the night Jimmy's daughter died covered in someone else's blood...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16615 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 528 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Dennis Lehane's Mystic River takes the material of the ordinary police procedural thriller and shapes it into heart-break. As boys, Jimmy, Dave and Sean were friends, until one day Dave was abducted by two men pretending to be cops, and was never quite the same again. As men, Dave is a damaged fantasist, safe in a quietly happy marriage; Jimmy a retired criminal making a good respectable living for the sake of his children; and Sean is the homicide cop who finds himself investigating the murder of Jimmy's eldest daughter Katie. This is not just a book about what becomes of the children who grow into adults; it is about what happens to a neighbourhood when the rules change, when an old established working-class district acquires gentrified espresso bars at one end and the beats of the city's most dangerous whores at the other. It is also a book about the tragedy of all sudden violent deaths; we never forget our sense of Katie as she was, dancing on the last night of her life--she is never just the corpse here, never just the object of mourning and investigation. --Roz Kaveney

Observer (Peter Guttridge)
'Enormously impressive: page-turning but thoughtful; moving in its sad inevitability… One of the finest novels I've read in ages'

Guardian (Maxim Jakubowski)
'Dennis Lehane establishes himself as one of the greats of crime-writing with MYSTIC RIVER'

Customer Reviews

Heartbreak River
I bought the video of 'Mystic River' and was two thirds of the way through when I decided that I would read the book before I saw the end of the movie. And I really wanted to see the end...
So I read the book over four nights, and was surprised at just how closely the film version was sticking to the story. (A very rare event.) Certain details were changed - Jimmy has fair hair, Katie has blonde hair - minor stuff I know, but significant when you are visualising characters in a novel. And there were an extra few plot strands, of course.
The strengths of the novel originate in Dennis Lehane's authorial voice.He seems to be able to articulate despair and grief, to cut to the quick of things, with great honesty and perception. A case in point is Dave Boyle's remembering of his mother singing 'Old Macdonald' to him after he returns from the most traumatic experience possible, and his caustic, heartbroken commentary on it.
Apart from all the harsh questions 'Mystic River' raises, especially during its harrowing closing chapters, it is also a great read. A crime thriller which genuinely thrills. Lehane gets everything right in this department.
After closing the book I also felt I had read a great American novel. A novel of stature, up there with Steinbeck and Heller and Doctorow.
And when I watched the ending of the film I was surprised not only at how close it still kept to the novel - Brian Hegeland's script has used the engine of the book to great effect - but just how much Clint Eastwood had captured the atmosphere. And how perfect the casting was. A double whammy. Perfect book and perfect film.

MYSTIC RIVER
I'd had 'MYSTIC RIVER' on my wish list for ages but did not actually purcahse it until I heard that they were turning it itno a movie staring Sean Penn and Kevin Bacon. While I heard great things anout Dennis Lehane as an author this was the firsrt of his books that I've read and I am very pleased that I chose this one to start with. Lehane paints a picture so realistically that you can alomst feel the grief, anger and despair that his characters feel.

Jimmy, Davey and Sean were childhood friends and while all very different in personality, Jimmy being the tough one, Sean the boy from the "right side of the tracks" and Davey the follower, they never missed a Saturday together. However, one Saturday things take a turn for the unexpected when two men posing as police officers abduct Davey. Once returned to his familly days later and knowing the horrors that Davey must have enduredd at the hands of these men, the friendship between the three boys is irrevocably torn. Twenty some odd years later, when Jimmy's daughter Kaite is murdered the three of them are thrown back into each others lives. Sean is the investigating officer in Katie's murder and Davey who is married to Jimmy's wife's cousin is there to lend his support. But with a secret hanging over his head about his own misdeeds the night of Katie's murder Davey must try to keep it together himself.

When young Davey is abducted in the first few chapters of the book you feel the anguish that his family and friends go through as they await his safe return. You can also feel how tourtured that experience has left Davey as an adult. When Jimmy's daughter is murdered you feel the pain and sadness that he and his family go through and understand his urge to find the killer and make him pay at any cost. And when Sean is forced to investigate the murder of his estranged friends daughter you can feel how torn he is between doing his job and a sense of loyalty to an old firend in the hardest time of his life.

After reading 'MYSTIC RIVER' I couldn't wait to see how this story played out on the big screen and for once the movie stayted very true to the book. Penn and Robin's performances were defintiley Oscar worthy as you see these characters brought to life. If you loved the movie you will love this book even more.

A big departure from previous books
A friend passed me 'Sacred' to read on holiday - and I had it finished by the time I'd hit the beach. When I got back I ordered the rest of Lehanes books and greedily devoured them - great characters, clever dialogue and super storylines. 'Mystic River' represents a big change in Lehanes writing style - gone are McKenzie and Gennaro, and with them goes the tongue-in-cheek wisecracks that epitomised their series. Instead we have a darker, more mature story....a tale of three long-gone schoolfriends linked by the horrific murder of one of their daughters. Old coals get raked over and secrets uncovered - and although you never feel yourself intimately enjoying the company of any of the main three characters, they are painted in good detail, and you find yourself truly compelled to find out the motivations behind all three men. All in all, a good tale that leaves you guessing till the end - heavier than Lehanes previous work, but definitely well worth reading.