This is the fourth of Lehane's Boston-based series featuring private eyes Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, and to my mind it is the best. This is partially because the relationship between the two partners has resolved itself, thus taking the distracting, Cheers-style 'will they, won't they' element out of the equation, while opening it up for further conflict. And it is that latter possibility which Lehane brings to the fore in this tale of betrayal, kidnapping and child abuse.
This book addresses ambiguities which are not usually visited by writers walking down those particularly contemporary mean streets, and they provide a number of telling twists. One problem with this series has been the distance between the sensitive characters of Kenzie and Gennaro, as revealed through Patrick's narration, and the rather less-sensitive persona they are required to be by the demands of the story, if not their profession. The presence of their deus-ex-machina sidekick Bubba, a kind of less-challenging uber-Hawk, makes this contrast all the more apparent. The closest parallel I can think of for this is Elvis Cole, but Robert Crais makes the harder edges of Cole's background clearer. This is an on-going problem which Lehane evidently tackles book by book. In the meantime, Gone, Baby, Gone moves at a pace which accelerates throughout, until the moment when the resolutions come, with their inevitable let-downs. A first-rate piece of writing.
