The brilliant new novel from New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane.
´Small Mercies is thought provoking, engaging, enraging, and can´t-put-it-down entertainment´ Stephen King
´A jaw-dropping thriller... a resonant, unflinching story written by a novelist who is simply one of the best around´ Gillian Flynn
New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane 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.
´Mrs. Fennessy, please go home.´
´And do what?´
´Whatever you do when you´re home.´
´And then what?´
´Get up the next day and do it again.´
She shakes her head. ´That´s not living.´
´It is if you can find the small blessings.´
She smiles, but her eyes shine with agony. ´All my small blessings are gone.´
In the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessey 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.