Reading Journal: Moonlight Mile, by Dennis Lehane (2010)

The sequel to Gone, Baby, Gone comes in at about half of its predecessor's length, and much thinner on story. Some of the excesses of the first installment were done away with, but as must any book in a series, this volume burns a lot of early pages catching up backstory, which stalled the book's ability to get its hooks into me. Lehane's prose is as clean and quick-reading as it's ever been, though, and when the action does finally pick up, the book comes to a whirlwind conclusion - breathless, if a bit contrived, and giving us a sense of what will happen to Amanda (GBG's abductee), complete with a side of Russian gangsters, which (eventually) makes for an exciting read. Best of all, the ending is one that will allow Kenzie to come back to us a very different man... or, one that could equally allow Lehane to abandon this series altogether and try something new.