We have another round-up of great MOONLIGHT MILE reviews!
When the Lansing State Journal calls Dennis Lehane “one of America’s best crime novelists,” we at ARLA headquarters would certainly agree — and we’re very pleased to see that plenty of other critics do, too!
The Dallas Morning News is also a big Lehane fan: “You always learn something new when reading Lehane. Here, he’ll have you flipping pages as fast as you can, loving the pace and danger, all the while pondering how far your own moral compass might wobble away from true north under the right circumstances.”
The Houston Chronicle exclaims, “Given that this is Lehane writing, the novel offers intense and violent action, brilliantly evoked Boston and surrounding locales, an assortment of finely etched individuals skilled in thuggery, various awful parents, and a complicated knot of a plot with surprise twists to spare.”
More nice words from the Kansas City Star:
Moonlight Mile is a quieter outing than Lehane’s previous novels in this series, but no less gripping. Lehane delivers an emotional story that connects with the characters’ capacity to grow. Patrick isn’t as sure of his moral compass he once was as he negotiates a labyrinth of choices and compromises. Lehane’s reoccurring themes of moral ambiguity and the loss of innocence receive a thorough workout in Moonlight Mile.
Moonlight Mile is a worthy return for Lehane’s iconic characters.
In the San Francisco Chronicle, Lehane tells fans what to expect in this follow-up to Gone, Baby, Gone:
“Gone, Baby, Gone was a book about motherhood,” Lehane says. “Moonlight Mile is a book about fatherhood. It’s about Patrick coming to terms with a no-win decision he made at the end of Gone, Baby, Gone and how that decision impacts his own sense of fatherhood.”
Fans who felt ill at ease when they finished Gone, Baby, Gone are likely to jump at the opportunity to revisit Amanda’s story — not to mention the chance to see the private detectives as a married couple. But Lehane cautions readers not to expect a clean finish.
The ending of Gone, Baby, Gone “was meant to be an ending with zero sense of closure,” Lehane says. “It remains that way, even with Moonlight Mile. The past can’t be changed, only reckoned with.”
