Description

There are threads in our lives. You pull one, and everything else gets affected.

When they were children, Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus and Dave Boyle were friends. But then a strange car pulled up their street. One boy got in the car, two did not, and something terrible happened – something that ended their friendship and changed all three boys forever.

Twenty-five years later, Sean Devine is a homicide detective. Jimmy Marcus is an ex-con who owns a corner store. And Dave Boyle is trying to hold his marriage together and keep his demons at bay -demons that urge him to do horrific things.

When Jimmy Marcus’ daughter is found murdered, Sean Devine is assigned to the case. His personal life unravelling, he must go back into a world he thought he’d left behind to confront not only the violence of the present but the nightmares of his past. His investigation brings him into conflict with Jimmy Marcus, who finds his old criminal impulses tempt him to solve the crime with brutal justice. And then there is Dave Boyle, who came home the night Jimmy’s daughter died covered in someone else’s blood…

Publisher Review

Lehane's best book by far. Like all his writing, it shimmers with great dialogue and a complex view of the world * Newsweek * One of the greats of crime writing * Guardian * Heart-scorching... penetrating... a powerhouse of a novel * The New York Times Book Review * Enormously impressive: page-turning but thoughtful; moving in its sad inevitability... One of the finest novels I've read in ages -- Peter Guttridge * Observer * Get Dennis Lehane's Mystic River. Boy, does he know how to write -- Elmore Leonard