Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Gone, Baby, Gone: A Novel
    Gone, Baby, Gone: A Novel
    Gone, Baby, Gone: A Novel
    Audiobook13 hours

    Gone, Baby, Gone: A Novel

    Written by Dennis Lehane

    Narrated by Jonathan Davis

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    “Powerful and raw, harrowing, and unsentimental.”

    —Washington Post Book World

     

    “Chilling, completely credible….[An] absolutely gripping story.”

    —Chicago Tribune

     

    “Mr. Lehane delivers big time.”
    —Wall Street Journal

     

    In Gone, Baby, Gone, the master of the new noir, New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Shutter Island), vividly captures the complex beauty and darkness of working-class Boston. A gripping, deeply evocative thriller about the devastating secrets surrounding a little girl lost, featuring the popular detective team of Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, Gone, Baby, Gone was the basis for the critically acclaimed motion picture directed by Ben Affleck and starring Casey Affleck, Ed Harris, and Morgan Freeman.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateSep 13, 2011
    ISBN9780062101808
    Author

    Dennis Lehane

    Dennis Lehane is the author of thirteen novels—including the New York Times bestsellers Live by Night; Moonlight Mile; Gone, Baby, Gone; Mystic River; Shutter Island; and The Given Day—as well as Coronado, a collection of short stories and a play. He grew up in Boston, MA and now lives in California with his family.

    More audiobooks from Dennis Lehane

    Related to Gone, Baby, Gone

    Titles in the series (5)

    View More
    View More

    Related audiobooks

    Hard-boiled Mystery For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Winning Letter

      Sep 30, 2022

      I’m a single mother who struggles financially to get through each month. When my washing machine broke I had no funds to repair it, so I asked my neighbours if I could do my washing at their place. On a Wednesday afternoon my bell rang. At the door w

      5 min read

    • Article

      We All Live in Uncertain

      Jul 30, 2020

      “Think of Caddo as a maze of lakes within lakes,” says John Winn, proprietor of Caddo Outback Tours, as the two of us settle into a small Go-Devil boat roped to a dock in Uncertain, on the border of northern Louisiana. For two decades, Winn has given

      6 min read

    • Article

      A Lost Prayer

      Feb 2, 2023

      A Lost Prayer
      10 min read

    • Article

      A Love Supreme

      Oct 9, 2021

      A Love Supreme
      5 min read

    • Article

      Book Club

      Jul 16, 2020

      Book Club
      4 min read

    • Article

      I Got 99 Problems

      Nov 4, 2020

      I have never been in a serious relationship and my whole family is convinced I’m secretly gay. I’d happily tell them if I were, but I’m content on my own. How can I make them understand? A. S., North Yorkshire No problem here, that I can detect. Tr

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Lives of Bryan

      Jun 1, 2023

      The Lives of Bryan
      19 min read

    • Article

      Book Club

      Jul 20, 2022

      Book Club
      5 min read

    • Article

      Book Club

      Jul 10, 2019

      Book Club
      5 min read

    • Article

      Let’s Say

      Oct 7, 2022

      I magine a sticky, early August morning, around three o’clock. It is dark, the moon blocked by clouds, no streetlights, a siren in the distance, medics running to a heart attack. Imagine a man out on a bike or walking a sick dog, or maybe a woman who

      10 min read

    • Article

      Book Club

      Mar 29, 2023

      Book Club
      5 min read

    • Article

      Australia Reads At Home

      May 18, 2020

      Australia Reads At Home
      7 min read

    • Article

      Winning Letter

      Mar 3, 2023

      WE’RE barely into the year and already it feels like it’s a lot. The effects of loadshedding aren’t just about not having electricity – it affects our emotional state too. Having to figure out when to shop, do laundry, cook, care for kids, do hair, w

      5 min read

    • Article

      Book Club

      Feb 2, 2022

      Book Club
      5 min read

    • Article

      From Our Archives: A 1981 Interview With Toni Morrison

      Aug 7, 2019

      The award-winning author Toni Morrison died Aug. 5, 2019. We're reposting this 1981 interview conducted shortly after her fourth novel, "Tar Baby," was published.

      11 min read

    • Article

      Film

      Feb 27, 2023

      Film
      3 min read

    • Article

      Speedboat

      Mar 24, 2022

      Nobody died that year. Nobody prospered. There were no births or marriages. Seventeen reverent satires were written – disrupting a cliché and, presumably, creating a genre. That was a dream, of course, but many of the most important things, I fi nd,

      14 min read

    • Article

      Fabulous Fiction

      Mar 13, 2020

      Fabulous Fiction
      3 min read

    • Article

      Murder Most Fowl

      Mar 12, 2023

      Murder Most Fowl
      2 min read

    • Article

      LeTteR Bocks

      Aug 4, 2022

      ◻PLEASE find attached this trademark from a box of eggs, which appears to show a chicken lifting its leg to crack off an eggy one. Susan Butcher, Australia ◻FORMER Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been criticised for meeting an ex-KGB agent without h

      13 min read

    • Article

      Book Club

      Aug 16, 2023

      Book Club
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Gone, Baby, Gone

    4/5

    970 ratings51 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      This author never disappoints. The narrator is excellent. Love Patrick and Angie series.
    • 5/5
      LeHane is a masterful storyteller. His ability to draw the reader in emotionally is unique
    • 4/5
      Gone, Baby, Gone is the 2nd Dennis Lehane novel I've read. He writes a good story, and this novel is no exception. I haven't read any of the others in this series, but might recommend you do so before diving into this book.We're taken into a very dark underworld in this story, almost a bit much for me actually, and I usually like my crime fiction on the dark side. The storyline is plotted perfectly, though near the very end, I wanted it to be over. Lehane occasionally overwrites IMO and despite the pacing I found myself skipping some paragraphs. The action scenes are very well written, and our 2 protagonists, Kenzie and Gennaro have emotional depth.I was led through all the suspects without guessing how the ending would turn out. It satisfied me. This one is a good read.
    • 3/5
      Ultimately, this story raises the question: what do you do when the law hurts more than it helps, and where do you draw the line between what's legal and what's right? One of the more memorable passages in the book is a conversation between two Massachusetts police officers about the nearly unassailable rights of a natural mother, even when that natural mother is dangerous - and everyone can see that she's dangerous - or in this case, so narcissistic and stupid that the child suffers from complete neglect. And too many of us know mothers who are just as bad as the pitiful example of "maternal instinct" in this story.The only problem with raising these questions - and they are legitimate ones - is the flip side of one's inevitable answers. A known pedophile on an IP message board used this same argument as justification for HIS actions in taking a child from her parents - i.e., "I would be the better caregiver, because THEY don't love her like I do."Given the chronic and well documented public failures of the child welfare and juvenile court authorities throughout the United States, the questions raised are what make this story memorable.The reason I didn't give it a higher rating: the ending was so out of character for Patrick - who had trusted Angie's judgement completely throughout the story - that it made no sense that he would override her so quickly when so much was at stake. It was all the more bewildering as Patrick had stepped outside of the law himself earlier in the story without any moral qualms. Lehane made his point, but sacrificed the integrity of one of his main characters to do it.
    • 5/5
      Strongest of the series. A rollercoaster read, lots of ups and downs. Very emotional ending. By this time, book 4, of the lives of these two characters you feel very involved in their lives. The ending just rips your gut out.I used the “starâ€? system to rank the books in the series in the order that I liked them. In a non comparative sense I would give all of the books at least a solid 4 star ranking.
    • 5/5
      This nuanced story shocked me with twists and turns as each character strives to do the right thing and their goals conflict. Amazing. This story stays with readers long after the last page.
    • 5/5
      I've never read a Lehane novel, which considering my love of detective stories and crime stories in general is a little surprising. I really, really liked this novel. More twists than my curly hair, and real people, dialog, and situations. I'll have to go back and read the first three in this series, and I hope there are more.
    • 3/5
      I have a crush on Dennis Lehane.
    • 2/5
      Not so much my kinda book. Read about half and it started to sound like Charlie Brown's teacher, so i quit.
    • 4/5
      I rekindled my new found flame with Dennis Lehane when the book Gone Baby, Gone turned up on my book buying list. I was excited to read it and thrilled and surprised when two characters from the last Lehane novel I read, Angie Gennaro and Patrick Kenzie, popped back into my life.These two inner city Boston private eyes have their offices in a belfry in a church near their respective apartments. Since I am reading out of order, the author was kind enough to fill in the blanks for those of us who do that, by letting me know that they were now a couple. Once again, Lehane does a brilliant job of painting a vivid picture of the city of Boston and surrounds.I am not going to give much away because I want readers to go out and get this book. But, the story begins with the abduction of a four year old from her bedroom in a rough Boston neighborhood. Mom is a hard drinking, party girl who's story is that she left her daughter alone in an unlocked apartment to go next door and watch t.v. And drink with a neighbor. In fact, she left her alone in an unlocked apartment to go drink at an extremely unsavory neighborhood bar.While the story moves along at a cracking pace and involves good and bad cops, neighborhood toughs, drug dealers, organized crime and a host of other issues, what is never far from your mind is the fact that the clock is ticking and there is a four year old out there who is at risk now and was at just as much risk at home. The book even begins by reminding you how many children go missing in the United States each day.That concern over what is happening to the child made me anxious and that anxiety in turn, kept me up reading long past the hour that I should have been asleep. There area ton of twists and turns in the plot that keep you guessing right up to the final page. This is my second Dennis Lehane read and I see consistency in his books and his writing. I knew I would be back to read other books by this author and I was not disappointed. I can assure other readers that they won't be either. Just be prepared to stay up past your bedtime!
    • 4/5
      I have enjoyed every Dennis Lehane book I have read. You find yourself hoping the detectives will turn a blind eye as breaking the law in this case, is the morally correct thing to do. I'm sure there are many Amandas in this world and that is unbelievably sad.
    • 4/5
      Fast, action-packed mystery about a missing child, the search, and the actions and reactions of everyone involved. Excellent settings, mood, timing and dialogue. Opens discussion about good and bad parenting, the consequences, and society's responsibility toward children and families.
    • 4/5
      A great read, even though I'd seen the film and knew the twist at the end.
    • 4/5
      A great writer but very gritty and dark. A true believer that everything is grey and it's not easy to know what shade of grey is the right one. I give Lehane extra brownie points for a throw away line -- "... and the Wang was showing the latest bombastic Andrew Lloyd Webber or someone similar's piece of soldout, overwrought, overdone, singing dung, extravaganza ..." Thank you!!!Seriously, his plots are brilliant and unpredictable, his characters are deeply nuanced and his writing style is compelling and driven toward a messy conflicted climax that both satisfies and frustrates the reader -- frustrates because you feel the main characters' frustration. Good stuff.
    • 4/5
      It's been a while since I read the first 3 Kenzie & Gennaro novels and had forgotten most of the stories. However, "Gone, Baby, Gone" soon had me up to to speed with the titular characters.The story of the search for a missing girl was compelling and the writing strong, but God could it be depressing.The city and characters, as described, felt so dark and bleak at times you could be forgiven for believing that even thesun would not want to shine here.Principles of justice and parenthood were examined as if through a prism, and what was the best course of action was not always right. And what was right had horrible consequences.An excellent book. Dark, disturbing and at times hard to read. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      The search for more writers in the hard-boiled detective genre continues, and Lehane can be added to the list. There’s nothing more pleasurable than a cynical, wise-cracking detective. For example, Boston private eyes Patrick McKenzie and partner Angela Gennaro become involved in a child disappearance case. The mother, Helene, is a sleaze, more interested in watching Jerry Springer and the soaps and getting herself on TV than in caring for her child, and the two detectives soon discover the little girl has become a pawn in a kidnapping for ransom – Helene had been involved in the theft of $200,000 from a drug czar who wants his money back. Boston has a neighborhood called Charleston that was the original Boston site, but it was soon abandoned after the Pilgrims discovered the water to be inexplicably brackish. They crossed the narrow channel taking the Boston name with them. Those who live there now have been historically reluctant to deal with authorities; it’s home to many generations of dockworkers, fishermen and merchant mariners. “This adherence to keeping one’s mouth shut even extends to simple directions. Ask a townie how to get to such-and-such street and his eyes will narrow. ‘The F__k you doing here if you don’t know where you’re going?’ might be the polite response, followed by an extended middle finger if he really likes you.” Is the precise way Lehane describes the difficulty of an investigation in Charleston. I love it. The kidnapping evolves into an infuriating sequence of events, and none of them seems to make sense to the detectives. The mother of the child had apparently been involved with drug-dealers, and the child was being held in exchange for money the mother had stolen. Someone murders the drug dealers during the supposed exchange for the money and one of them, we learn, may have been a DEA agent. The ending resolves into a moral conundrum for the two detectives that breaks up their partnership. Rogue policemen had instigated a scheme to save abused children by stealing them and placing them into good homes, completely bypassing the system, and this case revealed the layers of secrecy that surrounded their plan.
    • 4/5
      Best of the series so far; worlds better than Sacred.
    • 4/5
      This was the first Dennis Lehane book I ever read, and I am a confirmed fan. Gritty, realistic, emotionally raw - it was even better than I hoped it would be. The central characters of lovers (and work partners) Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennarro are fantastic and very believeable. Lehane is also really good at making the setting a character of the book, by making it live inside out minds as we read - I love it when an author can do that.At it's heart this is a missing child story, but there are many layers to it and part of the joy of this book is discovering those layers along with the Patrick and Angie. Every time I tried to guess what was happening, I was wrong, so I just gave up and went along for the ride. There are twists and turns, as well as devastating encounters with child abuse and neglect, but also heartening ones with the people who want to save and protect the children. Patrick and Angie's relationship is tested time and time again by the circumstances of their case - making them question who they are and what they stand for. Along the way they encounter some other memorable characters. Broussard, a police detective, will stay with me for a while, as will missing child Amanda McCready's mother, Helene. Both are really well drawn by Lehane. No spoilers here, but I loved the ending - it was absolutely what the characters would have done and it is great to see an author trusting the reader to "get" that. I will certainly be looking for more Dennis Lehane novels in the future.
    • 4/5
      This might just be the best one yet. A seemingly simple, dead end case wound up taking me through some really intriguing ideas about law & society. There are clues dropped here & there that kept me interested, wondering how they would be resolved & they were. Awesome ending.

      More Bubba, too. He's always fun.

      I can't wait to read the next.
    • 5/5
      Although I read this fourth book in the series first, I didn't have any trouble following the story. It reads fine as a stand-alone book. I have not seen the movie so I read this with no knowledge of the story. I thoroughly enjoyed it from the first page to the last. It kept me guessing right up to the end. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      great book. though hard to read if you are a parent. it deals with kidnapping, child abuse, and molestation. but still worth the read.
    • 4/5
      Amanda McCready, 4, has vanished. She was taken from her working class neighborhood after her mother left her for four hours alone. Now, her aunt is pleading with Patrick and Angela to take up the search for her. A surprising cast of characters are involved in the kidnapping with the end result where one questions just what is right when it comes to children?
    • 3/5
      The final (?) book in a series featuring private detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, Gone, Baby, Gone is not quite as good as, say, Mystic River, but it is still a tight thriller. I might have enjoyed it more had I not seen the excellent film adaptation first and thus already knew the outcome. But something about this book disturbed me, and I think the film actually did a better job handling it. Lehane’s worldview is rather bleak, especially concerning children, and Gone, Baby, Gone presents a moral choice that would be difficult for anyone to make: Is it better to save the innocent even at the expense of the law, given that the child protection system is so broken? Because the things that happen to children in Gone, Baby, Gone are so horrific, and the people who seek to protect them clearly love them very much, the moral question presented shades more to black and white than the gray it actually is. Still, Lehane’s question is a challenging one, which elevates Gone, Baby, Gone above the level of a mere detective thriller.
    • 4/5
      One of the better thrillers I've read this year. The plot gets pretty convoluted but not annoyingly so, the principal characters don't suddenly act very stupidly to make things end with bang, the bad guys are not all bad and the good ones not above reproach. That in itself is becoming rare. Well written, nicely paced, likeable protagonists... Good enough to keep me reading long after my bedtime.”
    • 4/5
      So, I've basically praised the Kenzie and Gennaro series in every single one of my reviews regarding this series. Gone, Baby, Gone is no exception. In fact, Gone, Baby, Gone may be my favorite of this series, case-wise. One minor complain (very, very, very minor) that I've had over this series was that the cases weren't amazing. Well, in Gone, Baby, Gone, Lehane stepped up that aspect like you wouldn't believe. The case in this book was gripping, gritty, and heartbreaking. It was also crazy twists galore. I think Lehane might be the ONLY mystery writer that doesn't make me guess the whodunit. In fact, I don't even bother trying to guess because I KNOW I'll be wrong and I'm not usually wrong. Anyway back to the heartbreaking thing, what I liked most about Gone, Baby, Gone was that it wasn't your typical mystery "fluff" (ala James Patterson or whoever actually writes his novels). Lehane brings up complex questions of what is right and wrong, the law, and basically everything else. What was heartbreaking was that in Gone, Baby, Gone there were no winners. Again, Gone, Baby, Gone is highly recommended. It's definitely my favorite one (so far) in this series. It was thought-provoking, captivating, and superbly written.
    • 4/5
      The second most gripping of the Kenzie and Gennaro novel I've read so far (after "Darkness, Take My Hand") although some of the twists do seem a bit implausible at times.
    • 5/5
      In this novel, two private detectives(Kenzie and Gennaro) get carried away with the disappearance of a four-year old girl. With no leads, almost as if the girl never existed, the pair team up with two cops to figure out where this girl went. Her mother is a drug addict and gives little attention to the fact that her daughter is even missing; it is her aunt who is urging the community not to give up. Kenzie and Gennaro believe a heavy, top of the game drug dealer has something to do with the disappearance. Although he is in jail, he has many people in the outside world working for him. As the detectives go on their own looking for leads, they go from one to the next: even another disappearance of a little boy. They start to realize they are in deeper than they thought they ever would be and test their relationship and lives. This is a thrilling novel that you will find hard to put down. There are many twists and turns that you won’t see coming. It is detailed and almost as if you are witnessing it yourself. This is a great, quick-read, good for any young-adult reader and up.Shannon T.
    • 5/5
      I read Gone Baby Gone for the second time to refresh it in my memory before reading Moonlight Mile. I was just a great book. While I liked Lehane's mysteries, I never really appreciated his writing until reading The Given Day, which was extraordinary.Lehane's characters are well thought out, realistic and you either hate them or love them, depending who they are. His action is faced paced.The ending is not dumbed down. It's a must read both for mystery buffs and anyone who just wants a well written book.
    • 4/5
      Excellent book, excellent movie once you get used to the choice of actors.
    • 4/5
      This is the first book I’ve read in the series, and the only reason I’m going out of order is because I have an ARC of Moonlight Mile, which continues this story, sitting in my TBR pile. The good thing is that enough backstory is filled in for this to be a pretty decent stand-alone novel. In many ways, this is your standard child kidnapping/criminal enterprise story, but there are a few twists and turns along the way that make it stand out. Most of all, I think what holds it apart is the concept of a happy ending not necessarily being the best ending, and that sometimes following the law isn’t the only choice. I’m not sure I agree with how Lehane ends the story, but I understand why he did it. Most of all, I’m looking forward to reading more in this series.