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 (2003) a number of sub-plots that enrich and give backbone to the work.

Plotline: When they were children, Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus, and Dave Boyle were friends. But then a strange car pulled up to their street. One boy got into 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 is a homicide detective. Jimmy is an ex-con who owns a corner store. And Dave is trying to hold his marriage together and keep his demons at bay — demons that urge him to do terrible things. When Jimmy’s daughter is found murdered, Sean is assigned to the case. His investigation brings him into conflict with Jimmy, who finds his old criminal impulses tempt him to solve the crime with brutal justice. And then there is Dave, who came home the night Jimmy’s daughter died covered in someone else’s blood.

A tense and unnerving psychological thriller, Mystic River is also an epic novel of love and loyalty, faith and family, in which people irrevocably marked by the past find themselves on a collision course with the darkest truths of their own hidden selves. George Pelecanos, himself a noir crime writer with an interest in the social dimension of his stories provides the Appreciation of Lehane as a writer. The edition of 99 numbered and signed copies sold out on publication.