Prayers for Rain (Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro Book 5)

I absolutely love this story, for so many reasons, not the least of which is because it’s the first of the series that I read. Yes, it’s book five but I had no clue at the time. Prayers For Rain introduced me to Lehane as an author more than a decade ago and he remains a favorite still today.Time has passed since the events in Gone, Baby, Gone and the Patrick Kenzie we meet isn’t the one we know and love, he’s a shell of that man. When he learns that a former client committed suicide, he’s wracked with guilt for not returning her recent call. He wonders what drove her to suicide and learns that her picturesque life fell apart almost instantly after their last contact.Those around him question Patrick’s need to understand Karen’s decline and the bent of vigilantism he shows in the quest. But his instincts prove to be correct when he discovers she was driven to suicide by an unknown enemy. Someone carefully orchestrated the destruction of every aspect of her life in rapid succession, leaving her homeless, penniless and alone after even causing her family to turn their backs.Her story is so compelling, it provides the leverage needed to finally entice Angie back to their partnership. Bubba plays his biggest role yet and shines as always, bringing humor and a few surprises. It doesn’t take long for Karen’s tormentor to notice Patrick and focus on him, so once again, our MC’s become prey.This story, although still dealing with some heavy subject matter at certain points, is far lighter and funnier than the darkest of the series, so it’s a nice breath of fresh air. Showing the passage of time and how their lives have changed was a nice touch and somewhat surprising, considering how the series kept ripping out my heart and stomping all over it.I’d dare say that the ending to this story is the gritty series’ own version of happily ever after, which was a lovely surprise.

When a former client of Patrick Kenzie kills herself mere months after he warned off her stalker, Kenzie, out of a profound sense of guilt, investigates. After reconciling with his former partner and lover, Angie Gennaro, the two stumble upon a the truth: that the client was systematically stripped of everything in her life until she committed suicide. The responsible party is a man who does not like to be crossed, and has now set his sights on Kenzie and Gennaro.After the ambiguous villains of "Gone Baby Gone", Dennis Lehane returns to a more traditional type of villain for his fifth Kenzie/Gennaro book, "Prayers for Rain." While nowhere the monstrous serial killer Lehane created in "Darkness, Take My Hand" (the second book in the series), the villain of "Prayers for Rain" is sinister, smug, brilliant, and sadistic, inflicting pain and death because he can. Kenzie and Gennaro, in turn, want to stop him out of a sense of justice and vengeance. The tension mounts as the detectives must struggle to protect their own loved ones and safety while finding a the key to bringing down an invisible and brilliant killer.As with the rest of this series, Lehane explores the basic theme of power: who has it, why they want it, what they do to get it, and what they do when they have it. At the beginning of each novel, the most powerful character is the villain. They exercise their power violently, harming people because they can, and because their victims cannot fight back. It falls to Kenzie and Gennaro to exact revenge, which is usually pretty gratifying, if problematic, since our society generally frowns on revenge. Nonetheless, sometimes justice is not pretty, and it's understood that Kenzie and Gennaro are in the best position to fulfill that justice.While "Prayers for Rain"is the last Kenzie/Gennaro book for the time being, Lehane has not written a "last" book in a series. It would be easy for him to pick up this series if he so chose. I hope he does, as I have enjoyed Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro's company for the past couple of years. "Prayers for Rain" embodies much of what is great about this series and Lehane as a writer. It's sharp, taut, intense, funny, and gripping.

I enjoyed this so much. I purchased more of his tales.

This is the first book I have read by Lehane though I watched Gone, Baby, Gone and Mystic River and enjoyed both. I figured it was about time I read one of his books as we all know, books are generally better than the movie. I was not disappointed, this was a great piece of crime fiction.Not only was the plot fast paced and well-written, with plenty of twists, but the character development was great. I loved the interactions between Patrick and Bubba, who is a character unlike any other. Throw in Angie, who had left Patrick after Gone, Baby, Gone, she rejoins the team for this one, intrigued as they look for this person who completely destroyed a woman's life for no apparent reason.There is a lot of graphic violence but it didn't bother me, it added to the credibility of the story. I'm not sure whether Patrick and Angie are PI's so much as vigilantes in this one, but I enjoyed it very much. I've heard the next installment doesn't have as much Bubba, though it goes back to the story from Gone, Baby, Gone. I'll probably read it though I'll miss Bubba. I am also pretty sure I am going to read Shutter Island which I heard was much better than the movie which I did not see.I can see why Lehane is so popular. If you like the mystery/thriller genre with a little edge, I think you will enjoy this book.my rating 4.5/5

This was much better than I had feared. Lehane produced an almost-final Kenzie and Gennaro story that refrained from outright stupidity, and continued to surprise us in small ways. The plotting is good, after a bit of a slow start, and moves along well, dragging us happily with it as usual.The tragedy of Karen's death is presented so well. I felt the pain and loss, as I always do when bright young people are hurt or lose their way. Patrick's sense of honour is keen, as usual, and so is Angela's. It's this honour, and their long shared respect for it, that binds them together as a team. It's their long and deep love of each other that binds their hearts, even though it's along a bumpy and winding road. Their love and team spirit are the two elements that keep me coming back to Lehane, again and again. Yes, I will read the final book, set 11 years after this. I do love them.The villain is not as daunting or as scary as the publisher's summary implies, and I mean that in a good way. The summary is almost cliché, bad melodrama. But the actual book is very good, not as good as Gone, Baby, Gone.There’s not as much LOL here as some other Kenzie and Genarro books, but there is warmth and humour and a fun minor surprise: (view spoiler)11% ... His sense of honour never fails Patrick:And, yes, the worst of it she’d called me. Six weeks after I’d dealt with Cody Falk. Four months before she died. Somewhere in the middle of all that fatal unraveling. And I hadn’t returned the call. I’d been busy. She’d been drowning, and I’d been busy. I glanced down at her face again, resisted the urge to turn away from the hope in her eyes.13% ... I read this story now with trepidation. Another tragedy for Patrick to sort out, poor beautiful Karen’s life ruined then suicide, but this time working without Angela there. Somehow the pain of Karen’s collapse is just too much. Poor Patrick is lost in other people’s pain and terror, and him without “emotional backup”.His sense of fatigue is palpable, and we all know that after Grace and Mae left, and his life finally became meaningful with Angela, that his current romances will somehow be only shadows of who he and Angela are together.As we know from The Who: “One plus one don’t make two... One plus one makes One”18% ... The first half of this book, discovering the psychological abuse of Karen, and KNOWING how many men do this kind of thing to women every day is so hard, and worse is knowing that there is so little we can do to stop that.... Lehane writes these “entertainments” but the subtext is deeper. He must have some terrible demons and ghosts in his past.22% ... Siobahn, the maid“She turned her head toward me. ‘Aren’t they the same thing? Wishing to be saved? In this world, yeah? It’s ...’Her small face grew bitter and gray and she shook her head several times.‘It’s what?’ I said. She looked at me like I was a child who’d asked why fire burns or seasons change.‘Well, it’s like praying for rain, isn’t it, Mr Kenzie?’ She raised her hands to the clear, white sky.‘Praying for rain in the middle of a desert.’So much of Lehane’s writing expresses hopelessness, and a quiet anger and impotence about the state of the world.29% ... Patrick has clearly lost his balance since Angela left him. He’s become ruthless and untethered. He is lost and beginning to hate the person he's becoming. It’s heartbreaking, really.34% ... Two rays of sunshine in this gray-hearted book here. Firstly, Angela can’t help but smile at Patrick through her anger and disappointment in him. Her hatred of his choice in Gone, Baby, Gone is deep but fading. And second, the unabashed, open and joyful love between Holly and her Warren. Hope for redemption here.37% ... A view from inside of despair...“The barn seemed to sag another inch, and Karen Nichols’s voice whispered through the rural blight:See? No one loves.No one loves.”72% ... Very few cliches here, mostly well-written stuff. Lehane turns us into vigilantes slowly, with the villain ruining the lives of our heroes’ friends. Our bloodlust turns us into Bubba, just waiting to kill the villain slowly.I usually hate this kind of "hurt-the-hero's-friends" crime story immensely. It’s only the quality and pacing of Lehane's prose here that keeps me going.76% ... Me? Stalk the villain for days? No f***ing way! Rifle with a scope. Blam. Problem solved. I guess Lehane succeeded in turning me into a killer after all.78% ... occasionally, Lehane makes political statements... Which I love...“‘It was Panama. Remember? Killed nine times as many civilians as military personnel? All to capture a drug dealer [Noriega]with former ties to the CIA during the administration of a president [Bush Sr] who used to run the CIA.”.... F***ing greedy Republican criminals. Ten times worse now.79% ... End of chapter 29: Joy. Home. Truth. Wonderful.93% ... Dawes:“‘Maybe this is how God punishes the bad,’ he said.‘How’s that?’He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. ‘He lets us live.’All-in-all, another great read by Lehane.Sadly, only one book left, and here it is 23 years after he wrote the first Kenzie and Genarro.

Some SPOILERS for "Gone Baby, Gone" belowThis, the fifth of the Kenzie-Gennaro series, sees Patrick and Angie estranged, their personal relationship and professional partnership at an end following the devastating events portrayed in Gone Baby, Gone. Instead Patrick is working alone on routine missing persons cases when he finds that a former client has killed herself. Feeling guilty at having failed her Patrick decides to look into her death to find out just what happened. What transpires is a dangerous cat and mouse game with a psychopath whose particular modus operandi is the undermining of peoples' lives and driving them to suicide.There are strong echoes of the second Kenzie-Gennaro novel, Darkness Take My Hand, in the plot of this book. But the well trodden nature of the plot is probably secondary in this novel to the question of how Patrick and Angie begin to rebuild their personal and professional relationships. In addition, pleasingly, Bubba takes a more central role in this book, filling in large parts of his back story in the process.So, not the best in the series, but still a fine outing with two of the most likeable gumshoes in literature.

Taken as a whole this is not the best ever in the series because it is really two different stories linked closely together with a weak ending. However the story hang s together as a brilliant read with mostly believable characters so I strongly recommend it to readers accustomed to the author's whimsical interface and characters.

Too much background noise; too much going on; disjointed and lacking a certain something........A big disappointment for me this time.

Fast action. Tight story line. Great characters. Couldn't put it down once I started. Very well done. A fab read.