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Prayers for Rain |
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 Prayers for Rain byDennis Lehane William Morrow & Co. 337 pages, 1999 ISBN 068815333X Reviewed by PJ Nunn Read our review of Gone, Baby, Gone Read our author interview Lately, things haven’t been going so well for investigator Patrick Kenzie. His off and on relationship with partner Angie Gennaro is off again and he’s on his own. When prim and proper Karen Nichols hires him to discourage a stalker, Patrick calls on his old pal Bubba to help discourage the man and calls his job done. But he knows inside that he’s really not giving his best to any of his clients. He can’t seem to shake the doubts and confusion that hover around his head like a thick fog. When he learns that Karen took off all her clothes and jumped to her death from a Boston landmark, the persistent cloud is darkened by guilt. Could he have prevented her death? At least it serves to motivate him into action. Surprisingly, Angie is drawn back in to help. It soon becomes apparent that there was more than a random stalker in Karen’s life. Patrick, Angie and Bubba follow a downward spiral of deceit and murderous intent as victims multiply. They find themselves in mortal danger from an enemy even they may not be able to overcome. Lehane is often noted as a master of noir and certainly Prayers for Rain is written in shades of gray that lean toward black. It’s probably more significant for those who have followed Angie and Patrick through the previous four books, but will stand-alone just as well. Patrick’s introspection is very raw and painfully real. That realism and the ambiance of Boston's inner neighborhoods make the heinous criminal acts stand out in stark relief. Yet when the back cover is closed, the overall impression is not one of unrelenting darkness. The little things that we so often take for granted become illuminated in the midst of harsh realities. Some readers might find the violence toward the end simply too intense, but this will largely depend on their own reality. Then again, flying across the same stretch of desert, buzzards find carcasses while hummingbirds find flowers. Lehane’s work soars. Not because it’s perfect, but because interwoven with the plot and the characters is an invisible thread that breathes life and whisks readers away to another place in time. |
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