Title: Doesn't live up to the hype
Product review: I'm not much of a mystery fan; I was drawn in by the promise that Lehane wrote prose that was as much literature as genre fiction, drawing comparisons not merely to Elmore Leonard and Springsteen but even Hemingway. Those raves must have come from the easily impressed. What I found was overwritten (so much for Hemingway and Springsteen), hard-boiled bluster from the life-stinks-and-then-you-die school. The problem isn't that the worldview is dark and depressing; it's that Lehane hits you over the head with this revelation over and over again, and the attitude is coming not so much from the blue-collar characters as an author who, despite his pose of understanding, is looking down on his creations. A good editor could have shaved this by at least 100 pages, and an author less impressed with the sound of his own voice might have plotted a mystery that contained a surprise or two. If you're looking for a literary mystery, keep looking.
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