The final (?) book in a series featuring private detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, Gone, Baby, Gone is not quite as good as, say, Mystic River, but it is still a tight thriller. I might have enjoyed it more had I not seen the excellent film adaptation first and thus already knew the outcome. But something about this book disturbed me, and I think the film actually did a better job handling it. Lehane’s worldview is rather bleak, especially concerning children, and Gone, Baby, Gone presents a moral choice that would be difficult for anyone to make: Is it better to save the innocent even at the expense of the law, given that the child protection system is so broken? Because the things that happen to children in Gone, Baby, Gone are so horrific, and the people who seek to protect them clearly love them very much, the moral question presented shades more to black and white than the gray it actually is. Still, Lehane’s question is a challenging one, which elevates Gone, Baby, Gone above the level of a mere detective thriller.

Sigh! Dennis Lehane is my new favorite. I saw this movie before I ever read a Dennis Lehane book. The movie was fairly well done, but this book sizzles. The thing I really like about Lehane is how he doesn’t work from a formula; each book he does is very unique.

The only downside about seeing the Gone, Baby, Gone movie before reading any Patrick Kenzie-Angela Gennaro book is that I tend to see Casey Affleck in my mind whenever I am reading one in the series. I’m not sure if that is good or bad.