Mystic River by Dennis Lehane

 “This was real life, but bigger than real life. This was hyper-real. Her husband may have killed a bad man. And if that bad man really was dead, the police would want to find out who did it. And if the trail actually led here, to Dave, they’d need evidence.”

― Dennis Lehane, Mystic River

I vaguely remember seeing at least part of the movie Mystic River and thinking that I wasn't interested in reading the book. It gave me that feeling of a group of guys who had grown up together and one did something bad and the others had covered up for him. I didn't have an interest in that sort of story.

But then I read other Lehane books, like the first in his Kenzie and Gennaro series, Shutter Island, and The Drop. I like each one, even if I thought that A Drink Before the War was violent and I didn't want to read any more Kenzie and Gennaro books. I didn't remember The Drop very well until I read my blog post about it, and one of the things I said there what that I liked Lehane better and better with each book I read.

That thought was probably at the back of my mind when I ran across the paperback Mystic River at a used bookstore a few months ago. It ended up on my December TBR, and so I pulled it off the shelf to read. I finished this 400-page book in three days, quite a feat for me as I don't feel like I am a fast reader.

Looking around I couldn't find much about the reception of Mystic River as a book. It's Wikipedia page was minimal, having little more than the blurb from the back cover of the book. Some reviews had little more than that as well. My guess is that reception of the movie version, with its Academy Awards and star-studded cast, eclipsed any reference to the book. 

In the story, Sean, Jimmy, and Dave, who live in a not-so-good neighborhood in Boston, have a complicated relationship for 11-year-olds. One day, Dave is abducted by sexual predators and held for four days. Sean and Jimmy feel guilty for not preventing the kidnapping, and Dave is traumatized by the experience and the neighborhood's response to it.

Twenty-five years later, Sean is a State Trooper working in the homicide division, Jimmy is an ex-con with 3 kids and owns a profitable corner store, and Dave struggles with his low-paying job. All three still live in the neighborhood, and their lives once again become entangled when Jimmy's oldest daughter is murdered, Sean is assigned to investigate it, and Dave's wife has reason to believe he is responsible.

By page 146 I had many questions that I wanted the answer to, and Lehane masterfully fed me the answers, one-by-one, over the next 254 pages. Much like Shutter Island, I was very happy with the pacing of build-up in tension and how the author kept me on the hook, just playing out the resolution to my questions a little at a time.

In my post on The Drop, I wrote, "Lehane is not for someone who doesn't want to know about the grittier side of working class lives.  No one is completely innocent, but Lehane's books ask us to consider what is wrong and what is necessary." The same can be said for Mystic River. 

Having read the book, I don't really want to watch the movie, despite it's popularity. I enjoy all the actors, and particularly like movies directed by Clint Eastwood, but my guess is that the script doesn't follow the book, and that would be disappointing.