Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane

(Super-shiny library binding in weird light.) I've mentioned before that Book One of a long/indefinite series--not like a planned trilogy or anything--is often a really good read, all sort of introducing people and things that sorta become the status quo for later books, the situation that leads to the continuing story tends to be a good one. Sometimes, if an author decides to wrap up a series, that book is at least as good an idea to track down--it's all the resolutions that have been spinning like plates finally falling to the ground. I don't know the rest of Lehane's detective stories, this is the only one of these I've seen in the libraries I've been in, but there's something like a detective career's worth of stuff coming down, here. Clearly a finale, and kinda a grand one. Lehane's prose in this novel sparkles with wit and life, the characters are all remarkably well-defined, the story is clear and well-paced. Really good.