{"id":126,"date":"2011-01-17T15:45:06","date_gmt":"2011-01-17T22:45:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=126"},"modified":"2011-01-18T14:45:50","modified_gmt":"2011-01-18T21:45:50","slug":"moonlight-mile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=126","title":{"rendered":"Moonlight Mile"},"content":{"rendered":"

World traveler Bob Moyer sometimes finds it hard to stay home long enough to write a review, but recently he touched down in Winston-Salem long enough to dish this one out.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By Robert Moyer<\/p>\n

MOONLIGHT MILE. By Dennis Lehane. William Morrow. 324 pages. $26.99.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been 12 years since Patrick and Angie found the baby<\/em> in Gone Baby Gone. <\/em>They sent the baby<\/em> back to her negligent mother, and her uncle and his wife to jail for trying to save her.\u00a0 After that book, Lehane went from being a series writer to being a serious writer; his book Mystic River<\/em> became a bestseller and a big movie as well.\u00a0 Subsequently, he has been anointed the dean of the \u201cnew noir.\u201d\u00a0 His fans have been waiting for him to return to the Boston series that made him popular; this book should satisfy them.<\/p>\n

A lot has happened in the lives of the two detectives, on-again-off-again lovers who disagreed violently over his decision to return the baby<\/em>.\u00a0 In this latest episode, they have married and had a child, a toddler now.\u00a0 Times are tough for them; he\u2019s trying to make ends meet by working for a high-end law firm, hoping to get full-time status, and she\u2019s a student.\u00a0\u00a0 Oh \u2014 and the baby<\/em> has disappeared again.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s not a baby anymore, but a self-assured young lady who seems to have designed her disappearance.\u00a0 Patrick doesn\u2019t hesitate to take on the case again, chagrined at his earlier decision.\u00a0 His search endangers not just his life this time, but also that of his family, as he encounters meth dealers, a crazed Russian crime boss, a defrocked doctor now dealing in babies, and a whimsical mobster who seems the most sinister of all.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, in the midst of all the danger, Lehane makes sure that Patrick makes time to discuss with the now-grown baby<\/em> the situational versus societal ethics that brought them together again.\u00a0 It takes more than a few twists and turns to get them out alive, but Lehane manages with a modicum of mayhem, and only the offstage sounds of power saws disposing of bodies.<\/p>\n

By insisting on making a point, Lehane makes it hard on himself.\u00a0 The sexual tension in the couples\u2019 banter loses a bit because their baby is\u00a0asleep in the next room, and the novel\u2019s noir quotient sinks under the weight of an early bedtime.\u00a0 Lehane handles it all quite entertainingly, but both Patrick and the reader wonder at the book\u2019s conclusion \u2014 should he keep it up?\u00a0 Only time and Lehane\u2019s inclination will tell.<\/p>\n

Oh\u2014and sales, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

World traveler Bob Moyer sometimes finds it hard to stay home long enough to write a review, but recently he touched down in Winston-Salem long enough to dish this one out. By Robert Moyer MOONLIGHT MILE. By Dennis Lehane. William Morrow. 324 pages. $26.99. It\u2019s been 12 years since Patrick and Angie found the baby […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mysteries","category-thriller-suspense"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=126"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions\/128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}