William's Reviews > Darkness, Take My Hand

Excellent... Far better than the first book, but still flawed in the middle third.

This book starts and ends very well, very exciting and fun. Patrick's new loves, Grace and her daughter Mae, appear suddenly and unexpectedly. Angela is off slumming in bars, and she and Patrick seem back to The Friend Zone again. What happened in-between the first two books? The barely restrained (and terrific) passion between Patrick and Angela is suddenly missing at the start of this book. 😞

As is often the case in Lehane & Robert B. Parker books, what looks to be a simple case then turns slowly into a complete hairball, to use Parker's term. That’s fine with me, I enjoy it very much if it's done well.

Early in the book (19%), one of Patrick's younger friends, from his youth, is found murdered, horribly. This hit me hard, for personal reasons. It's very poignant, the beautiful girl, a little lost, a little worried, whom you might have helped, whom you tried to help, but ends up dead... Dead because you didn’t care enough, or you “respected her privacy”. Yeah, all of the good detectives, all good people and you and me, come across this in our lives, and the pain never really goes away.

And one of our inner voices tried to assuage the guilt we feel, and the lies we tell ourselves:
“Angie was right. It wasn’t my fault. You can’t save people. Particularly when a person isn’t even asking to be saved. We bounce and collide and smash our way through our lives, and for the most part, we’re on our own. I owed Kara nothing.”

At midpoint in the book, Lehane tries to create an imposing, semi-omnipotent Hannibal Lecter-type character, complete with warnings of apocalypse. Not an homage, though. Mostly a feeble rip off. I was not impressed...

During the middle 1/4 of the book, the story lags, burdened by characters yacking and telling each other what they already know. It's a bad habit that Robert B. Parker fell into, too often, and Michael Connelly almost never did with Bosch.

The last 1/3 of the book has two big action scenes, but the setup for the first is truly awful. Very Hollywood. (view spoiler)[ Empty house with two heroes, one young guard outside and vulnerable, electricity suddenly out, and the heroes suddenly making love while the bad guy closes in.
* Facepalm * (hide spoiler)] Very exciting action but could have been set up so much better.

The final action scene is a bit overlong, but not bad. I am not impressed with how quickly our heroes recover from incredible, astounding wounds and body trauma (in most crime noir books). And unlike for Bosch or Spenser, I feel far more often "manipulated" by Lehane here.

All-in-all, great pacing mostly, good character development mostly, good action scenes mostly, and five stars mostly = 4-stars.

Far, far better than book #1 with it's dull second half.


Notes and Quotes -

18% ... Here's a strange thing for an author to express, eh?
“None of them appeared to bathe much. This would have been a problem for me, but it didn’t seem to bother Jason. He didn’t bathe much, either. I’ve never been particularly conservative when it comes to my taste in women, but I do have one rule about bathing and one rule about clitoral rings and I’m pretty unyielding about both of them. Makes me a killjoy with the grunge set, I guess.”

35% ... jeez again. They finally made the crucial connection I did 8 chapters ago. * Facepalm *