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Lanny is an engrossing mashup of delicious prose poetry and a sort of child abduction mystery set in a small village on the outskirts of London. Settling into the first couple pages I wondered what the hell I was reading, but was initially spellbound by the imagery and then the alternating POV chapters engaged me in the interior lives of the characters. Later, I was on the edge of my seat wondering what happened to Lanny.

The title character in Lanny is a whimsical boy who frequently wanders off to parley with the flora and fauna of the forest and occasionally materializes in places he should not be. His father Robert is a business man with a long commute and some difficulty connecting with his odd son. Jolie is a crime novelist who thinks of her son Lanny as her muse and encourages his budding friendship with the celebrated local artist dubbed "Mad Pete". Lanny has also befriended a dark force in the woods - Dead Papa Toothwort, a shape-shifting spirit who has been watching over the village since prehistoric times.

The story is told in an intimate way by sharing each character's thoughts in first person perspective, including their thoughts about the other characters. The pacing of the interior monologues picks up dramatically when Lanny goes missing until we reach a point where the author skips from villager to villager at a dizzying speed. This part is masterfully written in a way that fits with the narrative and maintains its hold on the reader.

"What if I did murder Mrs Larton? The world would be a better place. How lovely it would be to kick in her door and ask her again: I just wondered if you’d seen my son, you awful bitch, you pissy clingfilm hag and by the way I hate hate hate you, I despise your smell of fetid carpets and toast; Silk Cut, marmalade, gas and antiques. I feel sick just thinking about your yellow-stained lamb’s-ear fuzzy upper lip, your heirloom rings stacked on your Churchillian pug-knuckles, the inside of your huge dank house, your weighty silver biro in your splotched hand as you scratch away at the puzzles in your evil newspaper."

There are many passages like this that please the eyes and tickle the reader's sense of language. I savored these parts, sort of rolled them around on the tip of the tongue like candy.

I began to imagine many possibilities for the ending and was rather disappointed it all came down to a fanciful dream revealing the boy's location. Jolie, Robert and Pete ended up as passive characters without agency in solving the mystery.

One other gripe I had with the book is that in Dead Papa Toothwort's POV chapters, he overhears the thoughts of the villagers and this is reproduced in the book in a highly stylized way, with copy floating all over the page. I have no idea whether this works in the printed version, but on Kindle it absolutely does not work. Much of this text is illegible or incredibly annoying to decipher. It was a mistake to include this indulgent typesetting on the Kindle version.



With a stronger ending, I think this might have been one of those dazzling literary takes on a genre story that can capture a larger audience. Although it is suspenseful, this is a book I'd recommend not for mystery or thriller fans but anyone who enjoys poetry and lyrical prose.