[Suggestions, observations, and advice, writing as Ben Leiter]
A thank-you note to Dennis Lehane for his book Moonlight Mile.
Mr. Lehane, please excuse my previous ignorance of the quality of your work. The dialogue and plot were as rich as Gone Girl. Of course, I fell in love with your protagonist which you had already planned for every reader to do.
I think I know how you did it: the protagonist is flawed; he is constantly in trouble; he tries to do right by his wife, and he is wicked in love with his little daughter.
So, after I bonded with your hero, and then the Boston Russian mob threatened his family — you had my undivided attention. Great plot twists and turns.
A thriller, through and through.
Maybe my contempt for the Russian mob and other mobs stems from my previous career?
Ben Leiter 