Boston-area author Dennis Lehane, made a name for himself with a series of books featuring private detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro and tough-guy best friend Bubba. From A Drink Before the War (1994) to say Prayers for Rain (1999) showed that Lehane was a master of the form of psychological suspense. Then with his departure suspense thriller Mystic River (2001) we have a tale about childhood friends Sean, Jimmy and Dave that have there lives turned upside down by a event on the street. Twenty-five years later, Sean is a detective, while Jimmy has taken to crime. Jimmy’s daughter is found savagely killed and Sean is assigned the case. Sean must go back to find the answers in relationships that he thought had ended years ago. The ambition that brought this configuration of law and order story together with a sharp character and social mileniu study is an intriguing and explosive mix. It contains, as does the succeeding books such as Shutter Island a number of sub-plots that enrich and give backbone to the work.

Plotline: The year is 1954. U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his new partner, Chuck Aule, have come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane, to investigate the disappearance of a patient. Multiple murderess Rachel Solando is loose somewhere on this remote and barren island, despite having been kept in a locked cell under constant surveillance. As a killer hurricane bears relentlessly down on them, a strange case takes on even darker, more sinister shades.

Shutter Island (2003) has pace, evocative language and characterisation. It retains the law and order format but two new aspects are added to this Lehane work. Firstly, the book is set in the 1950s McCarthy period – a time with its own period values and attitudes – and this device allows the reader to digest and perceive things with a critical eye. Secondly, the devil’s island psychic centre is a clue to the tricks that may have been going-on with drug and other experiments, and altered reality. Shutter Island is an intense mystery and psychological thriller that builds builds towards an explosive denouement. It was released as a motion picture with Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams and Max Von Sydow in 2010. Britain’s best-selling crime novelist Ian Rankin provides a lovely appreciation that delves into the characters of Lehane’s earlier private eye duo Patrick, Angie and Bubba. The edition of 95 numbered and signed copies sold out on publication.