Small Mercies

Small Mercies

by Dennis Lehane

Narrated by Robin Miles

Unabridged — 10 hours, 23 minutes

Small Mercies

Small Mercies

by Dennis Lehane

Narrated by Robin Miles

Unabridged — 10 hours, 23 minutes

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Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Small Mercies is Dennis Lehane’s latest novel since 2017’s Since We Fell. As with the best of Lehane’s work, a thriller is perfectly blended with issues of social injustice. Dennis Lehane uses the eyes of a detective and the ears of a newspaper reporter on the neighborhood beat, wrapping them in beautiful words that cut to the heart of humanity.

Instant New York Times Bestseller

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.


Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

02/13/2023

Set during the summer of 1974, this superior crime drama from bestseller Lehane (Since We Fell) explores deep-rooted racism in South Boston. While the community primes for a series of rallies organized by mob boss Marty Butler against school desegregation, 42-year-old single mother Mary Pat Fennessy is preoccupied with the disappearance of her rebellious, 17-year-old daughter, Jules. Though Jules’s friends claim she started walking home around midnight, mistrust and animosity toward Jules’s doltish boyfriend and a drug dealer Mary Pat holds responsible for her late son’s overdose bring out a mother’s frustration and rage. Her ensuing acts attract the interest of two detectives who are investigating the mysterious death of a Black man at a nearby subway station. The unwanted attention Mary Pat draws to the neighborhood threatens Butler’s business dealings, making him and his close-knit crew keen to put an end to her search. That Mary Pat is good with a pistol and capable of beating up young guys may stretch credulity, especially as there’s no mention of guns and fighting in her past, but the action builds to a gloriously tense and discomforting finale. Readers will be left feeling battered and scarred. Agent: Ann Rittenberg, Ann Rittenberg Literary. (Apr.)

From the Publisher

"Excellent and unflinching . . . . [Small Mercies] has all the hallmarks of Lehane at his best: a propulsive plot, a perfectly drawn cast of working-class Boston Irish characters, razor-sharp wit and a pervasive darkness through which occasional glimmers of hope peek out like snowdrops in early spring . . . . Lehane masterfully conveys how the past shapes the present, lingering even after the players are gone." — J. Courtney Sullivan, New York Times Book Review

“[A] ferocious crime novel. . . Land[s] like a fist to the solar plexus. . . Full of booby traps, but the metaphorical kind that blow up futures instead of limbs. . .[As] in the best mysteries, the detective herself is cracked open and remade. . .” — Laura Miller, The New Yorker

“Joltingly fierce . . . Dennis Lehane spares nothing and no one in his crackerjack new novel.” — Janet Maslin, The New York Times

Small Mercies is thought provoking, engaging, enraging, and can’t-put-it-down entertainment.”  — Stephen King

Small Mercies is a jaw-dropping thriller, set in the fury of Boston's 1974 school-desegregation crisis, and propelled by a hell-bent woman who's impossible to ignore. Thought-provoking and heart-thumping, it's a resonant, unflinching story written by a novelist who is simply one of the best around.” — Gillian Flynn

"Arguably his masterpiece.” — Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Year

“Without flinching, Dennis Lehane shines a lantern on a dark story, one the reader will not forget.” — James Lee Burke

"Dennis Lehane is a supernova and this is a novel that will throw your entire goddamn solar system out of alignment. Lehane has gone from strength to strength but never has he been more truthful, more heartbreaking, more essential. In the midst of our racial nightmare Small Mercies asks some of the only questions that matter: 'What’s gonna change? When’s it gonna change? Where’s it gonna change? How’s it gonna change?' This book is impossible to put down and its dark radiances will stay with you a long, long time.” — Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of This Is How You Lose Her

"Dennis Lehane peels back the layers of his characters like a sculptor finding the face of an angel in a block of stone. By a true master at the top of his game, Small Mercies is vintage Lehane. Beautiful, brutal, lyrical and blisteringly honest. Not to be missed." — S.A. Cosby, bestselling author of Razorblade Tears and Blacktop Wasteland

“Beautiful. I was blown away by how Dennis Lehane was able to bring such a deeply unfamiliar world into my heart. Small Mercies is hilarious and heartbreaking, infuriating and unforgettable.”
Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award winning author

“Lehane has built a career as a philosopher of the human animal.” — Noah Hawley

"Gritty . . . Brings readers into the mind of Coyne, a Vietnam vet and recovered heroin user who becomes a partial confidante to Mary Pat. His quest for personal salvation, if you will, is a welcome balance to her grief-driven descent." — Wall Street Journal

“You’ll be lucky if you read a more engaging novel this year.”  — The Times (London)

"Masterful . . . . If Lehane’s sociological precision gives Small Mercies a gravitas seldom found in crime novels, Mary Pat Fennessy, a 'mother . . . built for battle,' enhances the effect. She is a 20th-century version of a Fury out of Greek mythology, and her one-woman war against the mob is a fearsome thing to behold." — Washington Post

"Lehane book is a searing depiction of what happens when powerful emotional constructs such as maternal rage, racism, and militant isolationism collide and combust, leaving only the most tentative green shoots to poke through the ashes." — Air Mail

"This taut, gripping mystery is also a novel of soul-searching, for the author and reader alike." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Powerful, unforgettable…[a] remarkable novel about racism, violence, and parental vengeance.” — Library Journal (starred review)

"A complex, multidimensional tragedy of epic proportions . . . Lehane straddles the line between historical fiction and thriller as dexterously as anyone, and this is his best work so far.” — Booklist (starred review)

"Where a lesser writer might make Coyne into a cliché, Lehane imbues him with an unlikely humanity, a sense of hope that a better world exists, even if he’s not exactly a do-gooder in his own right." — Los Angeles Times

"As always, Lehane is terrific at finely drawn character sketches thrumming with both immediacy and humor." — Boston Globe

"Ambitious and multi-layered." — Financial Times (UK)

"Every page holds a line or a passage to savor and admire. More than a few will have readers cracking up. The lasting impression, though, will be of Mary Pat Fennessey—easily one of Lehane’s most indelible creations—a hard-bitten, foul-mouthed, 'tough Irish broad' from the Southie housing projects . . . . This potent mix of love and hate, racism and tribalism, revenge and reckoning, is Lehane writing at the top of his game, and will surely be one of the best books of the year." — Vannessa Cronin, Amazon Editor

"At the heart of this book is a masterly psychological study of racism. Lehane provides top-notch dialogue, an absorbing mystery, and and evocation of a historical moment foreshadowing America's 21st-century ethnic divide." — The Sunday Times (UK)

Small Mercies emerges as the ultimate Southie novel, a witness’s wrenching reckoning with a neighborhood that took care of its own, closed its borders, and fell to the enemy inside its walls.” — Chicago Review of Books

"This superior crime drama from bestseller Lehane explores deep-rooted racism in South Boston." — Publishers Weekly

"[A] high-octane drama . . . . Vintage Lehane. The dialogue is punchy, the action gritty and the mystery intriguing. Lehane's prose is deliciously raw . . . . The book's main highlight, though, is its central character. Mary Pat [...] is a true force of nature and one of Lehane's most memorable creations. Despite, or perhaps because of her flaws, we champion her all the way through this electrifying tale about race relations, retribution and power." — Malcolm Forbes, The Star Tribune

“Set amid Boston’s school busing crisis in the ‘70s, this explosive thriller begins when two mothers, Black and White, lose their children—one dead, one missing—on a sweltering summer night. With nothing left to live for, Mary Pat Fennessy turns against her own community. Lehane at his best.” — People Magazine

"Lehane is now well established as one of America's finest crime writers, who superbly blends uncompromising social history with uncompromising tales of what people driven to the limit will do. As ever, Small Mercies is populated with a wide-ranging collection of unforgettable people." — Reader’s Digest (UK)

"An old school, Southie mystery thriller that I think a lot of people are going to love to read.” — Boston.com

"Lehane is a rare writer who makes you want to read fast and slow at the same time. His propulsive plots compel you to keep turning pages. Yet, his profoundly perceptive writing makes you want to pause—to laugh at an exquisitely caustic description or to tend the hairline crack a character has just opened in your heart . . . . What genuinely gives this novel texture is its language. Lehane is a master at authentic conversation, dialogue that feels like it just exited the mouth of a real person." — WBUR

"The bard of Boston returns with a raw-knuckled tale of school integration, racial tension, and a pair of suspicious deaths that rattles both sides of that divide circa 1974." — Entertainment Weekly

"Riveting." — Tampa Bay Times

“If you read only one crime fiction novel this year, it should be Small Mercies.” — Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine

Library Journal

★ 01/01/2023

In the hot summer of 1974, anti-busing violence and racism erupt in Boston. The same night a young Black man named Auggie Williamson dies in the subway, Mary Pat Fennessey's 17-year-old daughter, Jules, disappears. When she can't get information from the young people with Jules that night, Mary Pat turns to the men who offer protection in the neighborhood, Marty Butler's Irish crew. Mary Pat already lost one child to drugs and the streets, and she is scared she might have lost another one. When she can't get answers as a grieving mother, all of her fear turns to learning the truth. Why was Jules near the subway where Auggie Williamson died? Where is her daughter? Homicide officer Bobby Coyne sees violence and death in Boston every day, and he's investigating the Williamson case. But he can only watch in awe as Mary Pat, a tough Southie broad who was born to fight, turns all of her maternal rage and street instincts into her own investigation. Mary Pat might well burn down the neighborhood to discover what happened to her daughter. VERDICT After almost six years since his last novel, Since We Fell, Lehane's (Mystic River; Shutter Island) latest is inspired by a childhood experience when his family was caught up in the violence of the anti-busing riots. Pair this powerful, unforgettable story with S.A. Cosby's Razorblade Tears, another remarkable novel about racism, violence, and parental vengeance.—Lesa Holstine

MAY 2023 - AudioFile

Robin Miles shines in this compelling story about family, culture, and justice. The story is set in Boston against the backdrop of the 1974 protests against public school integration. Mary Pat Fennessy has lived in the Southie housing projects all her life. One summer night, her daughter Jules doesn't come home, and a young Black man is killed. As Mary Pat asks questions--and closes in on what happened--she begins to rethink everything she's been told about what separates us and what brings us together. Miles captures the dialect of the community, as well as Mary Pat's desperation and determination. A word of caution: The language and racial slurs used match the historical context of the story but can be difficult to listen to. K.S.M. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2023-02-08
Racial tensions provide the powder keg for this explosive mystery.

A master of literary crime fiction, Lehane revisits the Boston of almost a half-century ago, when, in 1974, court-ordered school busing incites protest throughout the White neighborhoods of a very segregated city. As a working-class White woman trying to keep one step ahead of the bill collector, Mary Pat Fennessy has a close but tense relationship with her teenage daughter, Jules, who seems to be keeping secrets from her mother. One night Jules doesn’t come home, and Mary Pat is frantic. The next day at Meadow Lane Manor, the old folks’ home where she works as an aide, she learns that the son of Dreamy Williamson, one of her few Black co-workers, died in a mysterious subway incident that night. Mary Pat doesn’t know Dreamy well but likes her well enough. It seems that both of them have lost children now, but they respond differently, experience different levels of support from their communities, and come to learn that these seemingly separate losses—a death and a disappearance—have a connection that neither could have anticipated. The novel focuses on Mary Pat, illuminates her from within as a loving mother and basically a decent person who nonetheless shares the tribal prejudices of her Irish neighborhood toward people whom they feel are encroaching on their turf. It’s a hot summer, tensions are escalating, and threats of violence are at fever pitch. As Mary Pat keeps trying to find out what happened to Jules and why—wherever the truth may lead her—she discovers how much she has to learn about her daughter, the neighborhood, and the crime outfit whose power and authority have long gone unchallenged. She risks everything to discover the truth.

This taut, gripping mystery is also a novel of soul-searching, for the author and reader alike.

Product Details

BN ID: 2940174897847
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication date: 04/25/2023
Edition description: Unabridged
Sales rank: 640,595
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