moonlight mile

I've really reached the point of no return with my book obsession.

Last night, I bullied my mother into taking me to New England Mobile Book Fair. I have a love affair with this store--it has literally every book you've ever heard of and a couple thousand you haven't. You get lost wandering the aisles, and the books are supposedly sorted according to publisher (which is extremely inefficient and half the time, not even true), but it smells like paper and sells everything cheap and I absolutely adore it.

Long story short, I walked in with fifty-five dollars, promised myself I was only going to get two books, wound up spending my mother's patience and ninety bucks. Among my recently acquired collection is Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane, which I finished in five and a half hours (yes, I spent my Saturday night reading. Point of no return.)

This book is a sequel to the famous Gone Baby Gone, in which private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro look into the disappears of four-year-old Amanda McCready and dive into the underworld of pedophiles, corrupt cops and kidnappings. Ultimately, Patrick's controversiall decision destroys his relationship with Angie and damages his belief that solid, honest parenting still exists.

In Moonlight Mile, Amanda McCready is sixteen years old with a beautifully bright Ivy future--until she disappears again. Patrick and Angie are struggling to pay bills and secure jobs for themselves, but feel obligated to search for this girl, one last time, because her case is the one that haunts them the most. They soon find out Amanda has made friends with some corrupt people and pissed off the Russian mob. Patrick and Angie realize they've bitten off more than they can chew. Again.

Dennis Lehane is one of those writers who creates books where you want to eat the words right off the page. I took a highlighter to mark my favorite passages, and here are some of them...

"It's stupid to believe in luck, but we do it every time we cross a busy street."

"It's amazing how fast a beautiful woman can turn a guy's mind to lint storage. Simply by being a beautiful woman."

"Marry an Irish temper to an Italian temper and you get broken dishes."

"As much as I love my daughter, I will never love her squealing. Maybe I will, though. Maybe I do."

^I might be a few words off, this is strictly from memory.

Dennis Lehane books are, plainly put, addictive. Please go read them. That's all. MWAH