Jimmy was once a criminal and is still a hard man but is a loving family man.

Dave's got his childhood baggage but still tries to be the best husband and father he can be. None of the three leads are very simple characters. While I knew I was supposed to assume Dave Boyle killed Katie Marcus, Lehane had me changing my opinion quite a few times. And Sean Devine is a cop with a wife he hasn't seen in over a year and a child he's not sure is his.įrom the beginning, Lehane kept the waters sufficiently muddy to hold my interest. Jimmy Marcus is a former career criminal who has gone straight and become a family man. Dave Boyle has drifted from job to job, never quite managing to bury his abduction experience. Mystic River is the tale of three Boston boys who grew up to be very different Boston men. While Mystic River is normally classified as a thriller, it's so much more than that, an exploration of growing up and what a traumatic childhood event can blossom into. However, I'm back aboard the Lehane Train now and quite pleased.

It probably would have been had I not discovered George Pelecanos. Yeah, 2013 was supposed to be the year of Dennis Lehane for me. Did Boyle do it? And if he didn't, can Sean find the real killer? Decades later, Dave Boyle, the kid who got into the car, is accused of killing the daughter of Jimmy Marcus, one of the other boys, and the third boy has grown up to be Sean Devine, the cop in charge of the case. One kid gets in the car, the others stay put, and their lives will never be the same. Once upon a time, three boys were fighting in the street when two men claiming to be plainclothes cops show up. And then there is Dave, who came home the night Jimmy's daughter died covered in someone else's blood.Ī 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. His investigation brings him into conflict with Jimmy, who finds his old criminal impulses tempt him to solve the crime with brutal justice. When Jimmy's daughter is found murdered, Sean is assigned to the case. And Dave is trying to hold his marriage together and keep his demons at bay - demons that urge him to do terrible things. Jimmy is an ex-con who owns a corner store. Twenty-five years later, Sean is a homicide detective. One boy got into the car, two did not, and something terrible happened - something that ended their friendship and changed all three boys forever. But then a strange car pulled up to their street. When they were children, Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus, and Dave Boyle were friends. This New York Times bestseller from Dennis Lehane is a gripping, unnerving psychological thriller about the effects of a savage killing on three former friends in a tightly knit, blue-collar Boston neighborhood.

Mystic River by Dennis Lehane