Gone, Baby, Gone is another visceral, but rewarding novel by Dennis Lehane.   We can expect him to provide plot twists, surprises, revelations, and moral ambiguity.    Another author would write a thriller based on the premise – little girl kidnapped, police attempt to trace what happened, family hires a detective agency, conflict between police and PIs, thriller elements, then a conclusion.    But Dennis Lehane never writes a “template novel.”   

The characters are flawed, nuanced, and unsure of themselves.   The plot winds and misleads the reader.    It can be hard to tell who are heroes and villains are.   What looks like a climax and a resolution becomes something difficult, unsettling, and disturbing.   

I saw the movie first, but I wish it had been the other way round.    Both are excellent, but the moral dilemmas are better presented in the novel and as a reader I better understood the intent of the story.     This was a tale that stuck in my gut and its still with me, best managed with a long sigh.

4.7 out of 5.0 stars4.7

Here is the first half of the audiobook: