The Drop

Dennis Lehane returns to the streets of Mystic River with this love story wrapped in a crime story wrapped in a journey of faith—the basis for the major motion picture The Drop , from Fox Searchlight Pictures directed by Michaël Roskam, screenplay by Dennis Lehane, and starring Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, and James Gandolfini. Three days after Christmas, a lonely bartender looking for a reason to live rescues an abused puppy from a trash can and meets a damaged woman looking for something to believe in. As their relationship grows, they cross paths with the Chechen mafia; a man grown dangerous with age and thwarted hopes; two hapless stick-up artists; a very curious cop; and the original owner of the puppy, who wants his dog back.

My Review

I have actually read Shutter Island and Mystic River by Mr. Lehane but I have watched the movie versions of Mr. Lehane's books Gone, Baby, Gone, Mystic River, and Shutter Island and enjoyed them all. So I decided to check out this book as again I was somewhat familiar with the people and town of Mystic River. There was something about this book that was missing and that was the empathy for the characters. Plus the story line did not intrigue me as much. I knew after reading Mystic River that this book would be slow reading as that is how it went with the prior one but I tried and tried and just could not fully embrace this book. It was when I was about half way that I realized that I was just going through the motions and I could not remember what had just happened in the last five chapters. Not one of my favorite books by Mr. Lehane.