Angie Gennaro and Patrick Kenzie once roamed the mean streets of Boston catching criminals. Now that they're married, Angie spends most of her time looking after their young daughter and going to school; Patrick works cases as an independent contractor for a prestigious private investigation firm, hoping to get into full-time employment there, despite his "attitude" problems. Then a name from the past resurfaces that will take Angie and Patrick down a new but strangely familiar path: Amanda McCready.
The girl was taken at age four from her neglectful mother by well-meaning kidnappers (one of them the girl's uncle) and placed with a couple eager to raise her in a loving home. But Patrick was hired to find Amanda, and when he did, he returned her to her biological mother. Angie has never quite forgiven him -- and perhaps Patrick has never quite forgiven himself -- for doing his job instead of what was right, causing heartache not only for the good- intentioned kidnappers, but for an innocent little girl. Now, 12 years later, Amanda has gone missing again, and her aunt turns to Patrick for help. Could this be his chance at redemption? With Angie's assistance, he searches for answers, but the more he finds out, the more complicated things get. No one has really considered that wherever Amanda is, she might not want to be found.
For those readers who only know Dennis Lehane from SHUTTER ISLAND and MYSTIC RIVER, here's a change of pace, although it's really a return to his roots with the two main characters from his original mystery series. (And if you're thinking the names sound familiar, this is technically a sequel to GONE BABY GONE). The tone is a bit lighter but with the same great dialogue, narrative and tight plotting you've come to expect. If you've never read any Lehane books, this is a terrific place to start, with two engaging, wisecracking leads, a stark but affectionate portrait of Boston, and a satisfyingly twisty plot. I first discovered Patrick and Angie several years ago and was delighted to find out what was going on with them. I hope this is a new beginning rather than a final chapter.
Acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane
delivers an explosive tale of integrity and
vengeanceβheralding the long-awaited return of private
investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro
Amanda McCready was four years old when she vanished from a
Boston neighborhood twelve years ago. Desperate pleas for
help from the child's aunt led investigators Kenzie and
Gennaro to take on the case. The pair risked everything to
find the young girlβonly to orchestrate her return to a
neglectful mother and a broken home.
Now Amanda is sixteenβand gone again. A stellar student,
brilliant but aloof, she seemed destined to escape her
upbringing. Yet Amanda's aunt is once more knocking on
Patrick Kenzie's door, fearing the worst for the little girl
who has blossomed into a striking, clever young womanβa
woman who hasn't been seen in weeks.
Haunted by their consciences, Kenzie and Gennaro revisit the
case that troubled them the most. Their search leads them
into a world of identity thieves, methamphetamine dealers, a
mentally unstable crime boss and his equally demented wife,
a priceless, thousand-year-old cross, and a happily
homicidal Russian gangster. It's a world in which motives
and allegiances constantly shift and mistakes are fatal.
In their desperate fight to confront the past and find
Amanda McCready, Kenzie and Gennaro will be forced to
question if it's possible to do the wrong thing and still be
right or to do the right thing and still be wrong. As they
face an evil that goes beyond broken families and broken
dreams, they discover that the sins of yesterday don't
always stay buried and the crimes of today could end their
lives.
No excerpt available.
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