"Small Mercies is thought provoking, engaging, enraging, and
can't-put-it-down entertainment." -- Stephen King
The acclaimed New York Times bestselling writer returns with a
masterpiece to rival Mystic River--an all-consuming tale of revenge,
family love, festering hate, and insidious power, set against one of the
most tumultuous episodes in Boston's history.
In the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessy
is trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. Mary Pat has
lived her entire life in the housing projects of "Southie," the Irish
American enclave that stubbornly adheres to old tradition and stands
proudly apart.
One night Mary Pat's teenage daughter Jules stays out late and doesn't
come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by
a subway train under mysterious circumstances.
The two events seem unconnected. But Mary Pat, propelled by a desperate
search for her missing daughter, begins turning over stones best left
untouched--asking questions that bother Marty Butler, chieftain of the
Irish mob, and the men who work for him, men who don't take kindly to
any threat to their business.
Set against the hot, tumultuous months when the city's desegregation of
its public schools exploded in violence, Small Mercies is a superb
thriller, a brutal depiction of criminality and power, and an
unflinching portrait of the dark heart of American racism. It is a
mesmerizing and wrenching work that only Dennis Lehane could write.
