Book: Prayers for Rain
Author: Dennis Lehane
Genre: Mystery, Crime Drama
Series: Kenzie and Gennaro (but the book stands alone if you haven't read the others)
Pages: 375
This book was loaned to me by one of my husband's co-workers, and I have to say, I enjoyed it! It's one of those fast paced, twisty-turny mysteries that suck me in and keep me reading for hours, forgetting to eat, shower, show signs of life... not really. But close.
Patrick Kenzie is a tough but tender-hearted private investigator in Boston who has connections with many of Boston's scummiest, and uses his play with these people as back up for the investigations that sometimes prove to be a little more than he bargained for.
Karen Nichols, a spunky, preppy, and by all accounts, a happy woman, comes to him with a problem. A stalker, threatening her and vandalizing her car. She just wants him to prove the vandalism so that the insurance company will pay up. This is a problem he considers easy-peasy... done in one day, he says. He takes care of it, scares the hell out of the stalker, Karen is thrilled, he never hears from her again (except for that one phone call, the one he was just too busy to return.....)
Six months later, Patrick learns that Karen has jumped head-first off a 26 story building, in the nude, committing suicide for the world to see. This doesn't jive with Patrick's impression of this woman, and he feels pretty guilty for ignoring her phone call, thinking maybe she had been calling him for help that he hadn't given. He takes it upon himself to find out what would make such a woman so desperate. What he finds is a disturbing, twisted, and sick story of years of mistrust, lies, and psychological torture.
I gotta tell you guys, this book is a little graphic. If you aren't comfortable reading about some really kind of disturbing things, then I would steer clear. But I have always loved a good crime drama. For a long time I wanted to be a criminal profiler, that is, until I realized that I really did not care what made these psychos tick, I just wanted them gone - scratch that career path!
Usually books like this are extremely predictable, and I've got the bad guy figured out by Chapter 4. It's basically just fluff entertainment at that point. This story actually kept me guessing for a good while, however, and threw a couple of curve balls that I didn't see coming.
It's a quick read, but if you're into murder and mystery, then it might just be your thang!
(By the way, this is the same author that wrote Mystic River, which was made into a really popular movie that I've never seen, but maybe you've heard of?)
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