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When a former client jumps naked from a Boston landmark, Private Investigator Patrick Kenzie wants to know why. Once a perky young woman in love with life, her suicide is the final fall in a spiral of self-destruction.
What Kenzie discovers is a sadistic stalker who targeted the woman and methodically drove her to her death â?? a monster that the law can't touch. But Kenzie can. He and his former partner, Angela Gennaro, will fight a mind-twisting battle against the psychopath, even as he turns tricks on them...
Prayers for Rain is another superior thriller from Dennis Lehane, the bestselling and acclaimed author of Mystic River, Shutter Island, and Gone, Baby, Gone.… (more)
Really enjoyed this one. Lots of action, lots of bad to very bad people, though sometimes it was hard to know who the bad guys actually were. I was a little disappointed at times when Patrick Kenzie seemed to make somewhat dumb or naive errors, but I suppose it makes it more real when the heroes aren't perfect. He's pretty good, though, and I enjoy his wisecracks, along with some of the other characters. I also like his childhood friend, Bubba, who is a good friend to have in a pinch. And a bad enemy to have at any time. His first inclination is to just kill someone he doesn't like, and if you mistreat dogs... watch out.
There were a lot of twists and turns throughout the book, starting with an extremely nice, sweet woman who goes downhill so fast and so far, it makes no sense. And that's the story - how did it happen? You'll have to read the book to find out.
Second read: 5 stars, because now I know the lead-in and the characters.
I think I enjoyed it more the 2nd time. I don't usually reread books, but for some reason, I read this before I got in to the series. After reading the series from the beginning, I really enjoyed it, and didn't remember any details for this one. It had some of the usual plot twists, and the one at the end was a bit unsatisfying, and somewhat hard to believe, or at least understand how it could happen that way. Still, it was a great read, and well, it is fiction so being hard to believe doesn't have to be an impediment. ( )
I took a Lehane break after Gone, Baby, Gone. I needed to read lighter books with stories that didn't make me feel like breaking down or getting angry because of stupid laws that make children's lives miserable.
But I decided to read the next one when I saw that I need to return the Lehane books I had at home to the library. I could return them and then borrow them again but I thought what the heck lets at least read this one!
Anyway, this book was a lot easier to read, the story is good, really good, just a hell of a lot lighter than Gone, Baby Gone, that doesn't mean that the story was fluffy and sweet, just that I could read it and it didn’t make me furious or sad. Well, the part with the dog hit me hard. But Bubba showed in the end what he feels about people hurting dogs.
It's a fast read, as always with Lehan's books. I feel the same way when I read Harlan Coben. Suddenly you are halfway through the book and you just started it. The reason I didn’t give it 5 stars, in the end, was because the ending was a bit predictable. It just wasn't that surprising, it was more an “ of course it has to be this way” not an “ OMG WTF?” a moment. He must have had a partner, he couldn't do everything by himself and where did he get the information, it was a logical ending, but not a perfect mind-blowing ending like Darkness Take My Hand. ( )
I took a Lehane break after Gone, Baby, Gone. I needed to read lighter books with stories that didn't make me feel like breaking down or getting angry because of stupid laws that make children's lives miserable.
But I decided to read the next one when I saw that I need to return the Lehane books I had at home to the library. I could return them and then borrow them again but I thought what the heck lets at least read this one!
Anyway, this book was a lot easier to read, the story is good, really good, just a hell of a lot lighter than Gone, Baby Gone, that doesn't mean that the story was fluffy and sweet, just that I could read it and it didn’t make me furious or sad. Well, the part with the dog hit me hard. But Bubba showed in the end what he feels about people hurting dogs.
It's a fast read, as always with Lehan's books. I feel the same way when I read Harlan Coben. Suddenly you are halfway through the book and you just started it. The reason I didn’t give it 5 stars, in the end, was because the ending was a bit predictable. It just wasn't that surprising, it was more an “ of course it has to be this way” not an “ OMG WTF?” a moment. He must have had a partner, he couldn't do everything by himself and where did he get the information, it was a logical ending, but not a perfect mind-blowing ending like Darkness Take My Hand. ( )
In Dennis Lehane's "Prayers for Rain," Patrick Kenzie blows off a call-back message that he believes leads to the death of a former client. Patrick, whose relationship with long-time business partner and lover has broken off, is emotionally damaged and determined to make up for the missed call. The ensuing investigation leads to a perverse mailman, mayhem, and death. The good news is Patrick and Angie are reunited.
This fifth entry in the Kenzie & Gennaro series blends a dark psychological thriller with the crime fiction author Lehane does so well. Overall it's a good mystery despite skating too close to the edge of plausibility in places. ( )
I heard the old, old men say, 'All that's beautiful drifts away Like the waters.'
W. B. Yeats
Dedication
For my friends John Dempsey, Chris Mullen, and Susan Hayes, who let me steal some of their best lines and don't sue.
And Andre, who is deeply missed.
First words
In the dream, I have a son.
Quotations
Tony T, the jokes went, couldn't outwit a can of soup. Put Tony T in a room full of horse shit and twenty-four hours later he'd still be looking for the horse. Tony T thought manual labor was the president of Mexico, and had once wondered aloud what night they broadcast "Saturday Night Live".
In his twenty-eight years on the planet, Tony had cracked so many safes that anytime an all-night burn job left a gutted shell in place of a bank vault, cops drove over to Tony's Southie apartment even before they stopped at Donkin' Donuts, and judges cut search-and-seizure warrants in the time it takes most of us to write a check.
They studiously removed the three parts of their respective Raj tea sets, the cream in the tin on top, the sugar below, the tea itself at the bottom, and fixed their drinks in cups so delicate I'd be afraid to sneeze in the same area code.
The only thing good Catholics love more than God is a short service. Keep your organ music, your choir, keep your incense and processionals. Give us a priest with one eye on the Bible and the other on the clock, and we'll pack the place like it's a turkey raffle the week before Thanksgiving.
I wasn't sure if "old man" meant father or husband. These parts, it could mean either. Hell, these parts, it could mean both.
I took a sip of my beer. It was warm. Popular with Europeans, I know, but so are blood sausage and Steven Seagal.
She held her cigarette up by her temple and gazed at Blake's "Los" on the east wall, a painting that was about as comforting as a plane crash.
"Goodbye, Mr Kenzie. Goodbye, Ms Gennaro. I trust I'll never see either of you again." "Trust all you want," Angie said. "But don't bet on it," I said.
It occurred to me, as we wound our way down the beach road past the site of the old amusement park, that if I ever had kids, and I took them to places that had once mattered to me, all there'd be to show for my youth would be the buildings that had replaced it.
Even in a crouch, Bubba running across your lawn os about as easy to miss as Sputnik would be. He weighs something less than a piano but something more than a fridge, and he's got that demented newborn's face billowing out from under spikes of brown hair and above a neck the circumference of a rhino's midsection. He kind of moves like a rhino, actually, lumbering and slightly to his right, but oh so quickly.
Stevie was called "The Pick" not because he carried an ice pick or because he was skinny or knew his way around a lock, but because he was famous for giving his victims a choice on how they'd die.
She leaned back and cupped her elbow in her hand as she took a drag from a white cigarette so long it could have hit somebody in the kitchen if she'd turned without warning.
Where have you gone, Burt Lancaster, and why'd you take most of the cool shit with you?
"I don't give a shit about his rage. I don't give a shit how magnetic he is. I don't give a shit if he can look into your soul and my soul and has God's phone number on speed dial.
The 1968 Shelby Mustang GT-500 is to American automobiles what Shakespeare is to literature and the Marx brothers are to comedy - that is to say, everything that came before was, in retrospect, a teaser, and everything that came after could never live up to the standard of perfection achieved in one brief blink of time.
"You going to cry soon?" "Trying hard not to." "Because real men don't cry?" I shook my head. "I'm afraid if I start, I might not be able to stop."
"It's a CAR, Patrick, do you get that part? It can't kiss you, cook for you, tuck you in or hold your hand." - "Yes, Sister Angela the Grounded. I understand that."
"This is the dumbest hunch you've ever had." - "Sure," I said. "Bitch. That helps." - "And you've had some monumentally dumb hunches." - "Would you prefer wine or beer with your crow?" - She buried her head between her knees. "If you're wrong, screw the crow, you'll be eating shit till the millenium." - "Thank God it's approaching fast," I said.
The bugs were angry. [...] For a while I tried the Zen trick of ignoring them, willing my body to seem unattractive. After a few hundred bites or so, though, I thought, fuck Zen. Confucius never lived in ninety-eight percent humidity on a ninety-two degree day.
I was pretty there'd be trip wires, defenses I couldn't see, Bouncing Betties waiting to make any possibility of Viagra in my future a moot point.
"Maybe this is how God punishes the bad," he said. "How's that, Doctor?" He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. "He lets us live."
I've learned with women never to take their threats against your clothing too lightly.
“All right', Bubba said. '... Just remember, the only sin in battle is hesitation. So don't fucking hesitate.”
Last words
Information from the Swedish Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
The sun was beginning to fade, though, and the air - slightly chilled as I slid through the trees - carried with it just the barest hint of rain.
When a former client jumps naked from a Boston landmark, Private Investigator Patrick Kenzie wants to know why. Once a perky young woman in love with life, her suicide is the final fall in a spiral of self-destruction.
What Kenzie discovers is a sadistic stalker who targeted the woman and methodically drove her to her death â?? a monster that the law can't touch. But Kenzie can. He and his former partner, Angela Gennaro, will fight a mind-twisting battle against the psychopath, even as he turns tricks on them...
Prayers for Rain is another superior thriller from Dennis Lehane, the bestselling and acclaimed author of Mystic River, Shutter Island, and Gone, Baby, Gone.
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Really enjoyed this one. Lots of action, lots of bad to very bad people, though sometimes it was hard to know who the bad guys actually were. I was a little disappointed at times when Patrick Kenzie seemed to make somewhat dumb or naive errors, but I suppose it makes it more real when the heroes aren't perfect. He's pretty good, though, and I enjoy his wisecracks, along with some of the other characters. I also like his childhood friend, Bubba, who is a good friend to have in a pinch. And a bad enemy to have at any time. His first inclination is to just kill someone he doesn't like, and if you mistreat dogs... watch out.
There were a lot of twists and turns throughout the book, starting with an extremely nice, sweet woman who goes downhill so fast and so far, it makes no sense. And that's the story - how did it happen? You'll have to read the book to find out.
Second read: 5 stars, because now I know the lead-in and the characters.
I think I enjoyed it more the 2nd time. I don't usually reread books, but for some reason, I read this before I got in to the series. After reading the series from the beginning, I really enjoyed it, and didn't remember any details for this one. It had some of the usual plot twists, and the one at the end was a bit unsatisfying, and somewhat hard to believe, or at least understand how it could happen that way. Still, it was a great read, and well, it is fiction so being hard to believe doesn't have to be an impediment.
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