Small Mercies

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.