BRIEF BOOK REPORT: Sacred by Dennis Lehane
This is the third of Lehane’s Kenzie and Gennaro series. There’s a lot I enjoy about these books. I like the Gen X realism of the detectives, the plotting also moves forward pretty forcefully and the mysteries are skillfully woven.
But there’s a lot that bugs me about these books too: the plots while well constructed always take a swan dive into heavy gothic territory which is wildly for me at odds with the casual tone of the rest of the books and thus even harder to swallow then it might normally be. Kenzie also has an annoying habit of dropping literary references as though somebody at the Lehane shop feels the need to remind you that even though it’s a detective novel, he really is smart.
Also, I’m not sure how I feel about a couple who are romantically involved solving crimes together. There is going to come a day when you’re going to have to make a hard choice between catching a murderer and letting your partner die in the trap he or she has stumbled into. That day comes to us all and when it does, we can’t be conflicted about the need to let our partner die; the murderer must be stopped or more will die and if one life has to be lost - particularly the life of someone who should’ve known better than to go into that house without back up - so that several people in the future won’t be killed, that’s how it has to be.
Rushfield Babylon recommendation: Very mildly recommended. Very very mildly.
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