Books 2009 #6 Prayers for Rain

And with Prayers for Rain my romp through these Dennis Lehane novels ends. I’ve still got Mystic River and Shutter Island to go, but this is it for the Kenzie/Gennaro stories. I’ll miss them. It’s not quite the same feeling as when I read the last of the Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes stories, but it’s still a little bit of an empty feeling knowing there’s not another one on the nightstand to devour.

How was this one, specifically? Not the best of the bunch, but not the worst either. The story is great- twisted, and engrossing, but it really seems different than the other novels. Different circles, different kind of crimes, that kind of thing. With that in mind, it feels right that he moved onto other things after this one. It’s still good, but I get the sense that it wouldn’t have worked forever going on from here without a switch into other characters and tone. From what I’ve heard the next two on my list* are great so it seems to have worked.

Still, I’d be happy as a clam to hear he was going to revisit these characters. Now, a few years on, it would be interesting to see what he’d do, revisiting his old haunts. Judging by the historical novel he wrote last year, I’m not thinking this will happen any time soon. Still, it can’t hurt to speculate. Speculation, that’s what makes the internet, the internet as far as I’m concerned.

*the actual next book on my list is Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, but as soon as that’s done I’ll be picking up either Shutter Island or Mystic River.