Small Mercies
- Author Dennis Lehane
- Narrator Regina Reagan
- Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
- Publish Date 25 April 2023
- Run Time 9 hours and 6 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Crime and mystery fiction, Crime and mystery: hard-boiled crime, noir fiction, Fiction: general and literary.
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What to expect
'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.
Please be aware that this audiobook covers themes of racism and abuse, using language which may cause offence to others if you're listening in public.
User Reviews
17-y-o girl Jules (Irish) goes missing and her mother, Mary Pat, searches for her. Over that same weekend Augie, a 20-y-o black man and son of a work colleague of Mary Pat’s, is found dead under a railway platform. He is in the white neighbourhood. Why? And is there a connection between his death and Jules’ disappearance? Mary Pat is the unlikeliest of detectives. Is that what she will become as the story develops?
Lehane’s descriptions of things like Mary Pat’s aging car are evocative. But his great strength here is dialogue - so well capturing people in dialogue and in thought, such as when Mary Pat recalls a moment from the day she’d last seen her daughter Jules: “They'd been walking along Old Colony, and Jules had spiraled into that weird dark mood which grew so exasperating that Mary Pat had asked her if she was PMSing. To which Jules replied: “No, Ma. Definitely no.”
“She was trying to tell me,” Mary Pat thinks. “And I couldn't hear.”
I enjoyed and was moved by (Boston Police Detective) Bobby’s first date (not with Mary Pat) and the repartee between the two, their shyness and brittle boldness so well captured.
I was quickly and totally invested in this audiobook and keen to see how it resolves Jules’ disappearance and Augie’s death amidst this very Boston Irish milieu, so wonderfully presented.
Great narration also.
I think how good that Lehane is prolific and I thank my friend for the recommendation.
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