Moonlight Mile
Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro Series, No 6
Dennis Lehane

William Morrow
November 2, 2010 / ISBN 978-0061836923
Mystery/Suspense
Amazon

Reviewed by Dennis Collins

Amanda McReady was kidnapped when she was four years old. The perpetrators were a couple who only wanted to take Amanda from a neglectful mother and give her a loving childhood. But kidnapping is not an acceptable way to address poor parenting transgressions. The child was eventually tracked down by private investigator Patrick Kenzie and returned to her mother. It wasn’t the best thing for the young child but it was the law.

Now Amanda is sixteen years old, and in spite of a deplorable home life she is an honor student with a great chance for a full ride college scholarship. But now she has disappeared again and her grandmother contacts Patrick Kenzie once more. “You found her once, you can find her again.” was the grandmother’s plea.

Things are very different this time around, at least as far as Kenzie is concerned. Amanda is old enough to make her own choices and her scholastic records indicate that she is capable of making very good ones. Amanda’s mother is now living with a convicted felon who is almost certainly running some sort of shady business out of their home. But they’re not the biggest problem.

It seems that Amanda has run afoul of the Russian mob and their baby mill scheme. When Patrick Kenzie enters the fray, the stakes go up for the Russians and Angie, Kenzie’s wife and former partner is put in the line of fire along with their own four year old daughter. The Russians have a seemingly limitless reach and the dangers appear all too real. Amanda has something that the Russians want and they won’t stop killing until they get it.

Moonlight Mile is the final installment on one of Dennis Lehane’s earlier books, Gone, Baby, Gone which chronicles Amanda McReady’s early life. The dialog is quite lively and very entertaining considering how dark the subject matter is. The story moves along at a good pace and never seems to get bogged down. Overall, it’s worth a few stars.

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