shutter island dennis lehane book review

Nevertheless, they feel as if they’ve missed a trick and the more they consider it, the more it drives them crazy. This is precisely what Lehane wants he leaves clues and hints strewn throughout the investigation, but the likelihood of the reader putting them together is next to none. When Cawley and Sheehan expose the “truth” at the climax of the novel, the reader is overwhelmed by the thought that they should have known what was coming. Lehane gradually draws the reader in to the point where they truly feel like a part of the investigation. Consequently, Doctors Cawley and Sheehan allow Andrew to live out his delusion in the hopes he will regress and no longer require an extreme lobotomy.ĭespite the weighty themes explored during the novel, it is deeply engrossing and thus remains a reasonably easy read throughout.

In reality he is Andrew Laeddis, an inmate of Ashecliffe who refuses to accept his role in the deaths of his wife and children. Major spoilers ahead: Lehane reveals to the reader through remarkable revelations and unexpected turns of events that Teddy’s “investigation” is nothing but an elaborate fantasy. With one storm ravaging the island and another raging inside his head, Teddy is pushed to his physical and mental limits in his struggle to expose the “truth “. US Marshal Edward ‘Teddy’ Daniels spends four days on Shutter Island, attempting to uncover the truth surrounding the disappearance of Rachel Solando, a patient at Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

Yet, whilst the film attempts to match its level of immersion, it fails to hit the mark. A dark and twisted psychological thriller, it pushes the reader to their limit and causes them not only to question the sanity of the characters, but their own state of mind as well. Dennis Lehane’s Shutter Island isn’t a book for the fainthearted.

Shutter island dennis lehane book review