Publishers Weekly
02/13/2023
Set during the summer of 1974, this superior crime drama from bestseller Lehane (Since We Fell) explores deep-rooted racism in South Boston. While the community primes for a series of rallies organized by mob boss Marty Butler against school desegregation, 42-year-old single mother Mary Pat Fennessy is preoccupied with the disappearance of her rebellious, 17-year-old daughter, Jules. Though Jules’s friends claim she started walking home around midnight, mistrust and animosity toward Jules’s doltish boyfriend and a drug dealer Mary Pat holds responsible for her late son’s overdose bring out a mother’s frustration and rage. Her ensuing acts attract the interest of two detectives who are investigating the mysterious death of a Black man at a nearby subway station. The unwanted attention Mary Pat draws to the neighborhood threatens Butler’s business dealings, making him and his close-knit crew keen to put an end to her search. That Mary Pat is good with a pistol and capable of beating up young guys may stretch credulity, especially as there’s no mention of guns and fighting in her past, but the action builds to a gloriously tense and discomforting finale. Readers will be left feeling battered and scarred. Agent: Ann Rittenberg, Ann Rittenberg Literary. (Apr.)
From the Publisher
His ability to create crystal clear portraits of humanity and then place them in the darker side of life is a writer’s true gift.” — USA Today
“I would follow Dennis Lehane anywhere.” — Lee Child
“Once you pick up a Dennis Lehane novel, you’re hooked. It’s just that simple.” — Kristin Hannah
“The publication of any Dennis Lehane novel calls for a celebration.” — Richard Price
“Lehane writes expert, compelling thrillers that dive into mysteries much more universal and more urgent than just a whodunit; he’s one of the game changers who smashed the imagined boundary between genre and literature, proving that we can have the best of both at once.” — Tana French
“Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River is perhaps the best crime novel in the English language.” — James Lee Burke
“Lehane is a graceful writer, observant of the world that shapes his characters’ lives.” — Washington Post
“Lehane’s work always combines pulp thrills with literary heart and sophistication.” — Entertainment Weekly
Library Journal
★ 01/01/2023
In the hot summer of 1974, anti-busing violence and racism erupt in Boston. The same night a young Black man named Auggie Williamson dies in the subway, Mary Pat Fennessey's 17-year-old daughter, Jules, disappears. When she can't get information from the young people with Jules that night, Mary Pat turns to the men who offer protection in the neighborhood, Marty Butler's Irish crew. Mary Pat already lost one child to drugs and the streets, and she is scared she might have lost another one. When she can't get answers as a grieving mother, all of her fear turns to learning the truth. Why was Jules near the subway where Auggie Williamson died? Where is her daughter? Homicide officer Bobby Coyne sees violence and death in Boston every day, and he's investigating the Williamson case. But he can only watch in awe as Mary Pat, a tough Southie broad who was born to fight, turns all of her maternal rage and street instincts into her own investigation. Mary Pat might well burn down the neighborhood to discover what happened to her daughter. VERDICT After almost six years since his last novel, Since We Fell, Lehane's (Mystic River; Shutter Island) latest is inspired by a childhood experience when his family was caught up in the violence of the anti-busing riots. Pair this powerful, unforgettable story with S.A. Cosby's Razorblade Tears, another remarkable novel about racism, violence, and parental vengeance.—Lesa Holstine
MAY 2023 - AudioFile
Robin Miles shines in this compelling story about family, culture, and justice. The story is set in Boston against the backdrop of the 1974 protests against public school integration. Mary Pat Fennessy has lived in the Southie housing projects all her life. One summer night, her daughter Jules doesn't come home, and a young Black man is killed. As Mary Pat asks questions--and closes in on what happened--she begins to rethink everything she's been told about what separates us and what brings us together. Miles captures the dialect of the community, as well as Mary Pat's desperation and determination. A word of caution: The language and racial slurs used match the historical context of the story but can be difficult to listen to. K.S.M. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2023-02-08
Racial tensions provide the powder keg for this explosive mystery.
A master of literary crime fiction, Lehane revisits the Boston of almost a half-century ago, when, in 1974, court-ordered school busing incites protest throughout the White neighborhoods of a very segregated city. As a working-class White woman trying to keep one step ahead of the bill collector, Mary Pat Fennessy has a close but tense relationship with her teenage daughter, Jules, who seems to be keeping secrets from her mother. One night Jules doesn’t come home, and Mary Pat is frantic. The next day at Meadow Lane Manor, the old folks’ home where she works as an aide, she learns that the son of Dreamy Williamson, one of her few Black co-workers, died in a mysterious subway incident that night. Mary Pat doesn’t know Dreamy well but likes her well enough. It seems that both of them have lost children now, but they respond differently, experience different levels of support from their communities, and come to learn that these seemingly separate losses—a death and a disappearance—have a connection that neither could have anticipated. The novel focuses on Mary Pat, illuminates her from within as a loving mother and basically a decent person who nonetheless shares the tribal prejudices of her Irish neighborhood toward people whom they feel are encroaching on their turf. It’s a hot summer, tensions are escalating, and threats of violence are at fever pitch. As Mary Pat keeps trying to find out what happened to Jules and why—wherever the truth may lead her—she discovers how much she has to learn about her daughter, the neighborhood, and the crime outfit whose power and authority have long gone unchallenged. She risks everything to discover the truth.
This taut, gripping mystery is also a novel of soul-searching, for the author and reader alike.
