Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime
and start saving today with fast, free delivery
Amazon Prime includes:
Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.
Amazon Prime members enjoy:- Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
- Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
- Streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with limited ads on Prime Video.
- A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
- Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
- Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access
Important: Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.
-21% $23.80$23.80
Ships from: Amazon Sold by: Honest Bookstore
$13.50$13.50
Ships from: Amazon Sold by: Ryan to make a Dollar
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
OK
Audible sample Sample
Small Mercies: A Detective Mystery Hardcover – April 25, 2023
Purchase options and add-ons
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.
- Print length320 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper
- Publication dateApril 25, 2023
- Dimensions6 x 1.05 x 9 inches
- ISBN-100062129481
- ISBN-13978-0062129482
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
Frequently bought together
Similar items that may ship from close to you
From the Publisher
Gone Baby Gone | Live By Night | Mystic River | Shutter Island | Since We Fell | The Drop | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Customer Reviews |
4.4 out of 5 stars
3,240
|
4.3 out of 5 stars
6,381
|
4.4 out of 5 stars
4,885
|
4.4 out of 5 stars
7,752
|
4.0 out of 5 stars
11,414
|
4.1 out of 5 stars
4,645
|
Price | $6.99$6.99 | $13.99$13.99 | $11.56$11.56 | $9.99$9.99 | $11.99$11.99 | $14.02$14.02 |
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Review
"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
About the Author
Dennis Lehane is the author of thirteen novels—including the New York Times bestsellers Live by Night; Moonlight Mile; Gone, Baby, Gone; Mystic River; Shutter Island; and The Given Day—as well as Coronado, a collection of short stories and a play. He grew up in Boston, MA and now lives in California with his family.
Product details
- Publisher : Harper (April 25, 2023)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 320 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0062129481
- ISBN-13 : 978-0062129482
- Item Weight : 1 pounds
- Dimensions : 6 x 1.05 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #17,785 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #743 in Murder Thrillers
- #1,864 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- #2,624 in Suspense Thrillers
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Dennis Lehane (born Aug 4th, 1966) is an American author. He has written several novels, including the New York Times bestseller Mystic River, which was later made into an Academy Award winning film, also called Mystic River, directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, and Kevin Bacon (Lehane can be briefly seen waving from a car in the parade scene at the end of the film). The novel was a finalist for the PEN/Winship Award and won the Anthony Award and the Barry Award for Best Novel, the Massachusetts Book Award in Fiction, and France's Prix Mystere de la Critique.
Bio and photo from Goodreads.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonReviews with images
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
It’s 1974. It was a hot, steaming, rainless summer in Boston, and temps were high not only in the skies but on the ground, between the white Southies and the Black citizens of Roxbury, both districts under a busing mandate to bring Black students to the all-white South Boston High School, and white students to mostly Black Roxbury. Forget the PC talk, and don’t expect Mary Pat to be the exceptional white woman who embraces desegregation. In fact, she demonstrates her own roots of being brought up by what we would now call racists. The entire South Boston population was on the verge of violence in these weeks before the first day of school.
Something had to give, but was forced busing the answer? Lehane bravely tells a story of the racial divide, without sentimentality, without fear, and with an unstoppable plot. This is an unputdownable novel, not for the faint of heart. Prepare for graphic violence and plenty of moral ambiguity, as Lehane explores this time in history through the eyes of mostly the Southies, Mary Pat as the primary character. It’s the eve of protests, rallies, and riots, and Lehane flawlessly weaves in true pieces of history with his period piece.
No need to cover the plot—that’s for the reader to enjoy as the pages turn. Mary Pat lost a son to an OD after surviving Vietnam. Her daughter, Jules, is seventeen and will be one of the bused students when school begins. Mary Pat has lived in Southie her entire life, she is a solid citizen of the community. Southie is guarded and run by the Irish mob (think Whitey Bulger)—the Butler crew, known as “Southie’s protector.” They will protect you, but you have to submit to their code, their ethos.
This story gets explosive when Mary Pat collides with the mobster crew, while the busing mandate looms in the backdrop. She needs them to help her find her daughter, who failed to come home on a Saturday night. On the same night, a young Black man is found dead on the train tracks of a subway platform. The mob crew want to control Mary Pat’s actions, have her play by their rules, and let me tell you, you don’t want to get on Mary Pat’s bad side, either.
The detective on the case, Bobbie Coyne, is trying to help Mary Pat. He refers to her as broken, but unbreakable. He knows her kind—the fierce Southie woman--but also recognizes that she is unknowable. She is as gritty as this tale, as raw as this story. Recently divorced from her second husband, she takes no prisoners in her quest to find Jules, and she’s scared of nobody.
Racial conflicts, class clashes, and a gripping crime. Lehane spares no bigoted racial slur for the reader in these pages. There were times I could barely stomach these words, but Lehane is from Dorchester, and he knows the genuine language of the time and place. Mary Pat does recognize that her racism is inherited, that there is no “factual” basis for it, except that her parents passed it down to her, and in Southie, it is generational. The language here is not gratuitous, but it doesn’t go down easy. The story peeks at redemption, and Mary Pat nearly vibrates off the page. Once you start, you’re hooked. It’s heroin for readers.
Lehane's perspectives on the lives of the poor are deeply and finely drawn. This is an unforgettable novel,
Mary Pat had a rough childhood. As a girl who got into many physical disputes with her siblings, she always gave as good as she got. She learned never to back down. Her community is run by local thugs, the most notable being Marty, who heads a protection racket. He is generous if you play by his rules but an absolute monster if you don’t. Marty is the man people go to for favors, knowing he expects payback. Mary Pat goes to Marty for help in finding Jules, hoping he knows something, but she can’t help but feel as if he is withholding information. He tells her Jules has probably just run off like a flighty teenager.
Mary Pat has a right to be concerned because Jules is seeing a boy named Ronald, called “Rum,” who runs errands occasionally for Marty. As she questions her daughter’s friends and contacts, she finds that Rum was the last person seen with Jules. Mary Pat also finds out that Jules, Rum, and two other friends were seen tormenting a black kid who ended up dead on the train tracks. Mary Pat turns private investigator and starts meting out her own form of justice to those who aren’t telling her the truth. She learns things about Jules that horrify her and worries that Jules has gotten over her head in trouble.
With writing as gritty as the South Boston neighborhood he describes, Dennis Lehane has created a story that sends the reader straight into the lives of desperate people. The novel succeeds on several levels as a taut action-packed thriller, a social commentary of the time and place, and a psychological study of people who have run out of options. I highly recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys a well-written, well-plotted story.