Moonlight Mile / Dennis Lehane / 324 p.

I enjoyed the book Gone Baby Gone (1998) so I was excited to hear that this follow-up book was coming out.  In Gone Baby Gone, four-year old Amanda McCready vanishes from her Boston neighborhood and PI team Patrick Kenzie and his wife Angie Gennaro risk everything (including their own relationship) in order to find her and return her to her neglectful mother. 

Now its twelve years later; Amanda is 16, and has vanished again.  Because Patrick Kenzie needs the money and is still haunted by his decision to return Amanda the first time, he agrees to take the case.  What made the first book so successful; the action, plot twists, descriptions of odd-ball Boston characters, and the ultimate dilemma at the climax of the story; is pretty much missing in this book.  In Moonlight Mile, you have to suspend belief and just accept things like there are 16 year old geniuses who can get into Ivy League schools and be identity theft masterminds.  Also, where the first book deals with real people who are dealing with problems / situations that could really happen to us; this book involves the Russian Mob and the black market.  Still there is a lot of action and funny new characters, so I enjoyed the book even though I couldn’t feel for the plight of the characters.