Mystic River

⚖The case for it

Sure, the plot leans on a stroke of fortune too neat to hold up, and it telegraphs its destination early. Skip past that. A Boston block raised three boys, saw one of them coax into a stranger's car one afternoon, and spent the next twenty-five years agreeing never to name it. Lehane traces that swallowed sorrow, and the loyalty curdling around it, with a patience few crime writers bother with. The dread lodges under your ribs and stays put when you expect it gone.

— the honest librarian

✕The case against

Lehane's plot needs one whopping coincidence, the sort that dissolves the moment you poke it, and a lot of operatic foreshadowing to reach its tragedy. Sean's subplot, an estranged wife who phones and says nothing, is dead weight from a different, worse novel. The ending's pivot toward Greek-tragedy fatalism gets announced so often you can set your watch by it.

— the honest librarian