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(Brought to you by jat impatientreader.com) The book starts with a prologue, set in 1998, of a woman named Rachel Smith and her son who show up in the fishing town of Port Mesa. It's told from the viewpoint of Dalton Voy, the owner of a bar, who hires Rachel to work for him. He says that women aren't taken seriously in town except for Rachel, who has a way of calming everyone she meets. He also says that the love that Rachel and her boy have for each other is as pure as anything he's ever seen. We go from the prologue into a series of statistics that state the numbers of missing children in the U.S. every year. Our main characters, Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, are introduced. They are two PIs that are looking into the case of a missing child, Amanda McCready. They are doing it at the request of Amanda's aunt and uncle, Lionel and Beatrice McCready. A city wide search of Boston is ongoing, with no clues having turned up yet. Lionel is trying to convince Pat and Angela that his sister (Amanda's mother) Helene is not a bad person. Evidently, she had gone to her friend's house to watch TV, and someone sneaked in the door and abducted Amanda. Pat and Angela talk to Lionel and Beatrice, trying to find out as much information about Amanda as possible. Lionel is reluctant to say bad things about his sister, but Beatrice harbors no reservations. Pat and Angela are very reluctant to take the case, but Beatrice is insistent on it. They agree to think about taking the case, and tell Lionel and Beatrice they'll meet at Helene's in half an hour. Beatrice and Lionel agree and they leave. Pat and Angela, who are a couple, start talking about how well they've done in the past year, and how they probably don't need to take the case. Characters introduced:
Synopsis of Gone Baby Gone by Dennis Lehane Patrick can't get over how beautiful Angela looks, and he thinks about the case that brought them together. He thinks about how they've been taking cases that haven't involved violence (such as finding a pet iguana), and how it is going to be hard to take this case. But Angela seems insistent, so they go to Helene's house. Helene is the mother of the missing girl. They find the police there and they go into Amanda's bedroom. Both Patrick and Angela try to think about what the girl's life must have been like. Beatrice introduces them to Lieutenant Jack Doyle, the head of the Boston PD's Crimes Against Children squad. They go out to the porch to discuss the case. Angela asks him if he's discouraged the McCreadys from hiring them, and Doyle says yes. Angela asks why and Doyle says that they may disrupt the operation plus the fact that the McCreadys don't have much money. He also says he doesn't want the press finding out that they've been put on the case because the police have been ineffective in finding leads. He also explains how his daughter went missing for a while in the past, and he doesn't want others to go through what his family did. He says that they are going to have two liaisons in the police force. Patrick and Angela go to Lionel's house, where Helene and Dottie, her friend, are watching TV and drinking. Lionel tells Helene that Patrick and Angela need to talk to her alone, but Dottie objects. They are about to leave, but Beatrice convinces them to stay and try to talk to Helene. They manage to do that, but they learn almost nothing new. They are again on the brink of not taking the case, but Beatrice pleads with them to help, and Angela agrees to do that. Characters introduced: |
