Mystic River cover art

Mystic River

Preview
Try for $0.00
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo + applicable taxes after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Mystic River

Written by: Dennis Lehane
Narrated by: Scott Brick
Try for $0.00

$14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $34.95

Buy Now for $34.95

About this listen

When they were children, Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus, and Dave Boyle were friends. But then a strange car drove up their street. One boy got in the car, two did not, and something terrible happened - something that ended their friendship and changed the boys forever. Twenty-five years later, Sean is a homicide detective. Jimmy is an ex-con. And Dave is trying to hold his marriage together and keep his demons at bay - demons that urge him to do horrific things.

When Jimmy's daughter is murdered, Sean is assigned to the case. His investigation brings him into conflict with Jimmy, who finds his old criminal impulses tempt him to solve the crime with brutal justice. And then there is Dave, who came home the night Jimmy's daughter died covered in someone else's blood. While Sean attempts to use the law to return peace and order to the neighborhood, Jimmy finds his need for vengeance pushing him ever closer to a moral abyss from which he won't be able to return.

©2001 Dennis Lehane (P)2003 HarperCollins Publishers
Crime Crime Thrillers Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Mystery Psychological Suspense Thriller & Suspense Thriller
All stars
Most relevant  
this book was great. I seen it on twitter as a recommendation from a author I follow. really good from start to finish. almost wish there was a book on Jimmy from the flats teen years and another about Sean's police career.

Awesome Listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I listened to the whole thing waiting for the outcome only to be disappointed. Very boring in my opinion.

So boring

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Kinda boring, no major shock at the end. 2/5 book but Scott Brick has a decent voice.

No shutter island

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Look, it's a good book, sure, the writing is pretty great, and maybe it does deserve a higher rating, but I can't do it. It felt like a misery marathon. I read it solely because it was on a list I'm trying to read through. Someone deemed it an essential mystery read. I don't.
Again, objectively, it's a good book minus the incredibly problematic assertion that people who experience childhood sexual abuse are destined to become abusers.
It is a hard boiled meditation on human suffering and the darkness that lurks in the bottom of the soul. That's a draw for some. It's not my thing. The world is a grim enough place. I resent that I just spent a fair chunk of time reading misery lit -for fun-.
And the mystery? The solution was intentional anticlimax, a purposeful let-down, exactly in the spirit of the bleak feel of the piece.

hmm

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.