It won't be our future. It'll be our noose.

It's been awhile since I read any Dennis Lehane* and Julie had given me a copy of Coronado for Xmas as part of my Secret Santa gift. It took me until June to read it. And until August to review it. I'm so good at staying on top of things.

Unlike the other Lehane I've read, Coronado isn't a novel. It's 5 short stories PLUS a two-act play based on one of those earlier short stories. Short stories can be very hit or miss for me. Sometimes it can be hard to really develop a story in such little time. For the most part I've found the collections of short stories, by a bunch of different authors, do not work for me. Even if half of the short stories are great, the other half are a bust (usually just boring) and the whole collection is...well, not ruined but at least leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I've been most successful with Stephen King collections,** so I mean this as a compliment when I say that Lehane's stuff reminds me of King's.

I don't mean that they write the same way. Lehane's short stories have the same feel and style as his novels, just as King's short stories feel like King. They both deal with the darker sides of humanity, but in different ways, yet both of them can construct a hell of a story in very little time. Since I never know how to handle short story collections, let's go with a quick description of each.

Running Out of Dog: The small town of Eden has a problem. They wanted to attract tourists with an amusement park, Eden Falls. But the town is almost overrun with stray dogs and the town needs to do something about them. Then there are the people in the town, many of whom are young men recently returned from Vietnam and carrying the weight of what they saw with them. Elgin is one of these men, well-liked. Enough so that people put up with his childhood friend Blue who isn't quite all there. There's love and infatuation and the desperate things people will do.
A small town is a hard place to keep a secret, and a small southern town with all that heat and all those open windows is an even harder place than most.

ICU: Daniel seems to have a normal life but a mysterious figure is turning up telling people to stay away from him. Then they start following him around. He decides to try hiding from them in the hospital. People don't really question you too hard if you're in the ICU.
There is a basic human concern in hospitals, a unity. And he begins to suspect he is addicted to it.

Gone down to Corpus: It's a story of revenge against perceived wrongs. Anger against the haves, from the have-nots. About the path that takes you to this moment, and when the moment doesn't quite go as pictured.
She looks like she can remember a time before she got where she is now, and all those different who-she-could-have-beens fork out like trails before us, branching off and branching off into all that Texas dust until there's so many of them they just have to fade away to nothing or else she'll go blind trying to keep count.

Mushrooms: More revenge, this time a neighborhood story. Which is a Lehane specialty. There are drugs and people being disrespected and again, everything you can expect from the guy.
Can't have some fool traveling for free through life like he got an all-day bus pass. You got to pay the freight. Everyone. Got to.

Until Gwen and Coronado: "Until Gwen" is the short story, which was later turned into the play "Coronado" which has apparently been performed and I would totally go to see it, even if it feels like it would be a very short play. Con men and love. One last grift. And of course, loyalties are questioned. The short story is in the second person, which gives it this sense of immediacy. And you (the reader) are trying to catch up with what you (the character) already knows. It works very well, both the story and the play.
Here's what you know about your father above all else - people have a way of vanishing in his company.

Overall, it's a short book filled with very short stories and one short play. There's not as much meat as the King stories and I can't say this is my favorite of his work but it does make me appreciate what he can do. And makes me think I should pick up another of the Kenzie/Gennaro books.

GIF Rating:

*Sacred, back in April 2014, at which point I also said "Hey, haven't read any Lehane in awhile."
**Seriously, if you want to try some King but aren't sure what, try some of his short stories. The Everything's Eventual collection is probably my favorite.

Title quote from page 205

Lehane, Dennis. Coronado: Stories. Harper Perennial, 2006.

Everyone is suspect. Everyone is suspect.

Remember last week when I had that post about how my week at work was finally slowing down? Apparently work saw my post and then laughed and laughed at me. And then several emergency projects came up because OF COURSE THEY DID. But I'm not letting this get in the way of these reviews that I'm way behind on. If this review makes no sense, sorry about that. I'm using most of my brain power at that work place, and then recharging during off hours.

It's been awhile since I read any Dennis Lehane so I decided I needed to change that. Also I'm pretty sure during the Thanksgiving-Christmas Kindle sale time I found a copy of Sacred on sale, so yeah, that helped too.

Sacred is the third book in the Kenzie/Gennaro series. The other books being A Drink Before the War (1), Darkness Take My Hand (2), Gone Baby Gone (4), Prayers for Rain (5), and Moonlight Mile (6). You'll notice I have a link for Gone, Baby, Gone because I did not realize it was part of a series, I just knew that movie and thus read this out of order. Whoops.

Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro are still private detectives in Boston when they are kidnapped/hired for a job.* Super-rich-but-also-dying guy's daughter has gone missing. Things haven't been going well for this family. First Trevor Stone (rich guy) and his wife were carjacked and his wife killed when things went south. While in the hospital to treat his injuries doctors discover he has an inoperable tumor and don't give him long to live. Then his daughter's boyfriend suddenly dies. And now the daughter, Desiree, is gone. Not only is she gone but Patrick's mentor, Jay Becker, originally hired for the case has also gone missing. Dun dun duuuuuuuuuuuun.

There are lots of twists including a weird cult that technically isn't Scientology cos no one says it is but yeah, it's Scientology and a trip to Florida and even some Bubba. Which, if you've read the other Kenzie/Gennaro books (and I encourage you to do so) you'll know that even a brief Bubba visit is a fun one. That psychopath that you know is doing horrible horrible things but since he's on your side, you're pretty happy he's around. I don't want to say much more about the plot since it is all about twists and turns and who do you trust? Who's telling the truth and what are the motives and how did Desiree seemingly fall of the face of the Earth?

This is everything you'd expect from a Lehane novel. It's dark and it's violent and it's suspenseful and it's entertaining. It's not my favorite Lehane book. That's not to say this is bad at all. It's just that the others are so good. Maybe this one didn't quite work because the setting changed from the familiar gritty Boston streets to spend time in Florida and Lehane writes Boston so well I'd rather see him play up there. Or maybe that's just because I know Boston, and I like seeing settings I know. But when you have lines like "This was the North End, home of the Mafia, and one thing people knew around here from birth was no matter what they saw, they didn't see it."

That said, I'd still recommend this book. Especially if you're reading the whole series, which you should also probably do. And I am going to try not to let more than a year go before my next Lehane.

*Are there better ways to hire a PI to take your case? Probably. I've never hired one so I suppose this could be normal etiquette, but let's assume not.

Title quote from page 260, location 2653

Lehane, Dennis. Sacred. Kenzie & Gennaro #3. HarperCollins, 2009. Kindle edition. Originally published 1997.

The fury of its own self-destruction creates an entirely new monster

I didn't MEAN to pick up another Lehane book. It just sorta happen. I tripped and found myself in the bookstore and then I ended up near the discount books and there's such good stuff there. I've made some bizarre rule with myself where I won't buy just one book. I have to find at least 2. Somehow that's my logic for buying less books. In other words, I don't understand logic.

ANYWAY, what I'm saying is I picked up another Dennis Lehane book because for whatever reason, those randomly show up on the discount table so I have to get them. This time it was Shutter Island. On the one hand, I really wish I didn't already know the ending*. On the other hand, I sorta loved the book anyway. Or at least really liked it.

This is very unlike the other Lehane's I've read**. It's about a crime but I don't think of it as a crime novel, like the other books. It's not as graphic or as violent. The setting is Ashecliffe Hospital, a hospital/prison for the criminally insane. And yet I'm never really worried about the psycho killers. So while it's unlike Lehane's other stuff in terms of plot, it still feels like one of his books.

It's 1954 and a patient has gone missing from the hospital so US Marshall Teddy Daniels has been called in to find her. The mystery is the hospital is located on Shutter Island. How do you escape an island? But Teddy and his new partner Chuck Aule learn that nothing is at it seems on this island. There's a missing doctor and overall no one seems overly concerned that there's an insane murderer wandering about.

The Night Circus was all about atmosphere. The plot was incidental. Here the plot and atmosphere work off of each other to create a really good story. It's creepy and it sucked me in. I wanted to know what happened next, I wanted to know what happened to Rachel and I wanted to know what was going on at this hospital. I didn't think deep thoughts. The other Lehane books got under my skin more. But this is a book I can see myself revisiting.

I haven't seen the movie yet. After reading this I really want to. So if you've seen it let me know how it is.

*Why no, I don't know the ending because of the movie, though that would be a logical conclusion. I know it because of a Cracked article. I ruined the ending for myself to read a snarky piece on a comedy website. Go me.
**Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, Darkness Take My Hand, A Drink Before The War

Title quote page 223

Lehane, Dennis. Shutter Island. Harper, 2003.

A guy who used a minefield for home protection were telling us Jack and Kevin weren't stable

I thought I liked A Drink Before The War. And I did. I do. Even after I started Darkness, Take My Hand I thought "This is nice and all but I prefer Drink." I'm not sure at exactly what point that changed. But it changed. Now as I said, I still like A Drink Before The War but Darkness wins.

Kenzie and Gennaro have another case. This time a friend of a friend is afraid she's being targeted by the mob. See she's a counselor/psychiatrist at a local school and one day this young woman comes in and is very nervous that her boyfriend, who is in the mob, is after her. The girl gives this woman the last name "Kenzie" and isn't actually enrolled into the school. Then she receives a picture of her son, but it's ominous because it's taken from far away and there's no note with it but the implication is "We're watching you and your loved ones." And just like last time, a case that seems relatively straightforward at first turns out to be an insane and violent and dangerous journey.

Lehane's stories often seem to be about the most horrible people possible. And the idea that these people exist not only as aberrations, but in huge numbers. His novels are mostly populated by awful, violent, hateful people, and you while reading him you can forget the world isn't so dark. And if your world is as awful as the one in a Lehane book, please seek professional help.

Even the good guys can be evil. And it can be hard to rectify this as you find yourself cheering for a psychopath. Not the main characters, Kenzie and Gennaro. I'm not sure I could take the books if they were as awful as the people they're going after. They have a friend Bubba who is a violent psychopath. But, you see, he's our violent psychopath. (Yes, I'm including myself in this group.) For reasons that aren't entirely clear he is fiercely loyal to Patrick and Angie. It's a little like having a guard dog. A guard dog that has surrounded his house in strategically placed land mines and is an arms dealer. But if Patrick or Angie tell him to make sure no one hurts someone they care about, you can be sure Bubba will make sure that person is not hurt. Sure, he'll enjoy himself while he's beating up whoever tried to hurt Patrick and Angie's friends, and that's where you think that maybe you shouldn't be cheering him on. But then you remember what this pummel-ee was trying to do and you're like "Punch him in the neck, Bubba!*"

Lehane's stuff is bleak. The stories are bleak. The worlds are bleak. But they're so good. I want moar. I want more Kenzie/Gennaro (and there's more in the series, so lucky me). I want more Lehane (and there's Shutter Island, so lucky me again).

Side note but since I saw the movie Gone, Baby, Gone before reading any of the Kenzie/Gennaro stories I can't help but picture Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan as Patrick and Angie. Not a bad thing or a good thing, just something I couldn't break myself from doing and made me laugh a little when Patrick says he'd grown a beard. Probably because I also can't help but picture Casey Affleck as the annoying kid from Good Will Hunting and that kid can't grow a beard. Silly rabbit.

*I often say "punch him in the neck" because I watched way too much Kevin Smith when I was younger and Joey Lauren Adams yells that during a hockey game in Chasing Amy. Why am I telling you this? To tell you that since Kevin Smith and Ben Affleck are buddies and Ben Affleck's little brother Casey has a cameo in Chasing Amy AND he played Kenzie in Gone, Baby, Gone as I've already mentioned in this post. I'm just playing 6 degrees, is what I'm getting at. Also two posts about all the darkness that is a Lehane novel is a lot, so I needed to lighten the mood.

Title quote from page 32

Lehane, Dennis. Darkness, Take My Hand. Harper Collins, 1996.

Know what the American way is?...Finding someone to blame

I've wanted to read more Lehane for awhile now. Well, at least since I read Gone, Baby, Gone and both Ben and Ellen said "You want more Kenzi/Gennaro? Read Darkness, Take My Hand". Now you've probably noticed that this book is not Darkness. How very astute of you. But you see, I found a copy of both A Drink Before the War and Darkness, Take My Hand in a single book. And seeing how this one is the first in the Kenzi/Gennaro series, I figured start at the beginning.

Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro are friends and business partners, private investigators, operating out of the neighborhood church in Dorchester, a working class neighborhood just outside Boston. The pair are hired by state politicians to locate a cleaning woman who previously worked at the state house and is suspected to have made off with some documents. It seems simple enough but of course if it was simple enough it would be a very short story. Instead the pair find themselves in the middle of a gang war and a government scandal.

Lehane's style is brutal in a beautiful way. It has graphic, violent moments, but they don't make up the whole novel. They are shocking but they aren't there just to shock you. They make a point about how evil some people can be. Or can become. He doesn't seem to write books that make you feel great about your fellow man, even if they have a "happy" ending. And I feel safe telling you about that "happy" ending because you can at least be sure that Kenzie and Gennaro make it out of this book alive. You know, because this is the first in a series and the series would be awkward if the main characters were both killed in the first book. But "the main characters in a series of books don't  die" is pretty much the happiest thing I can say happens.

The book was great. It was compelling, disgusting, upsetting, sometimes funny (in a gallows humor kind of way), and moving. It's a book that made me want to keep going, to know what happens next. If you've read any Lehane before, I probably don't have to try to convince you to check this out. If you haven't but have seen the movies (either Mystic River or Gone, Baby, Gone. I haven't seen Shutter Island so I can't speak to that one) then I also probably don't have to convince you to check this out. You know what you're in for so I can just tell you this is fantastic. And I always like to see where series characters start out. If you've never read Lehane before or seen movies based on his books, just know his stuff is dark, his stuff is violent and his stuff is good.

Title quote from page 113

Lehane, Dennis. A Drink Before The War. Harper Collins, 1994

It's a nasty world out there, and it's never been nice to children

I had only read one Dennish Lehane book, Mystic River, and that I had read for a class. I wasn't avoiding the guy, I just wasn't going after him either. But both Ben from Dead End Follies and Ellen from Fat Books & Thin Women are fans and they each have excellent taste in books, so when I saw a copy of Gone, Baby, Gone sitting on one of the sale tables at my favorite bookstore, The Brookline Booksmith, I decided now was the time to expand my Lehane horizons.

Gone, Baby, Gone is part of the Kenzie/Gennaro series, about two private detectives in the Boston area. It's not the first in their series but it's the first I've read. There are references to past cases that I'm sure are covered in other books (books I plan on checking out) so I suppose I'll find out eventually how important it would have been to read those first. Kenzie and Gennaro reluctantly take a missing child case, after pressed by the girl's aunt. Lehane does not pussy foot around difficult topics and this missing child case puts the PI against drug dealers, rapists, pedophiles and a whole host of other unsavory characters. Especially Helene, Amanda's (missing child) mom. She is both the best and the worst character. One of the most interesting characters to read and the one you most want to stab repeatedly for being so selfish. Amanda was abducted in the middle of the night while her mother left her alone with the door unlocked. She's mostly upset that Amanda missing has messed up her life instead of being terrified for her daughter's well-being. There's a reason it was Amanda's aunt that sought out the help of Kenzie and Gennaro.

I love reading stories when I'm familiar with the location and Gone, Baby, Gone takes place around the Boston area. I didn't spend huge amounts of time in Dorchester and of course Lehane says in the beginning that he changed the geography to suit the stories needs, but there are references to real places and just having a picture of where the Victoria diner or what the South Bay shopping center looks like makes me happy. It's one of the reasons I liked watching The Sopranos so much*. Now granted, Lehane's Boston is much darker and dirtier and more dangerous than I remember actual Boston ever being, but of course if it was cleaner or we ran into more college kids it wouldn't have been the same dark story. Although now I'm picturing the story filled with the bros that lurk around the various campuses in and around Boston and it's making me laugh.

I did have one big problem with the book, but that problem was my fault. Gone, Baby, Gone is a mystery as you try to figure out what happened to Amanda and who could have taken her and how do these drug dealers fit into the equation. This means that trying to untangle the plot and guess what the answer could be is part of the fun. And I already saw the movie**. I thought maybe this wouldn't be too much of a problem because I don't remember too many details. But I remember the last few scenes. So the whole time I was reading the book, even though I couldn't quite remember how we get to that point, I already knew what the outcome was going to be. This meant there was less suspense for me. Less than I knew there would be anyway, if I had no idea how things were going to turn out. However, this fact could also be a positive for the book, since knowing the ending didn't actually ruin the book. It's still an intriguing story and the characters make it worth it, even when you already know how it turns out.

I do plan on reading some more of the Kenzi/Gennaro series. I already have Darkness, Take My Hand selected as my next one, care of Ellen and Ben. I'm not sure exactly when I'll get to it, but I promise it won't be the same 6 year gap between Lehane reads.

*I'm originally from north Jersey.
**The movie's actually very good, though I would recommend checking it out after reading this If you're planning on picking this up that is. Otherwise just see the movie. There's a chance I liked Helene so much because I loved Amy Ryan's performance of her.

Title quote from page 65

Lehane, Dennis. Gone, Baby, Gone. Harper Perennial, 1998.