Harper Collins 2023
France: Éditions GallmeisterGermany: Diogenes
Hungary: Agave
Italy: Longanesi
Poland: Rebis
Russia: EKSMO
Spain: Salamandra
United Kingdom: Little Brown
If you're interested in further rights to this title, please click here.
Small Mercies
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. It is a mesmerizing and wrenching work that only Dennis Lehane could write.
Financial Times:
"Aficionados argue about who currently inhabits the top tier of American crime fiction...two names jostle for pole position: Dennis Lehane and Don Winslow. Both writers provide a perfect balance of detailed characterisation and state-of-the-nation underpinnings in their work...Lehane has said that his work is always about hope, however dark the scenarios, and that quality shines throughout this ambitious and multi-layered novel."
Reader's Digest:
"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."
"This taut, gripping mystery is also a novel of soul-searching, for the author and reader alike."
Stephen King (NYT Bestseller, National Medal of the Arts):
"SMALL MERCIES is thought provoking, engaging, enraging, and can’t-put-it-down entertainment."
Library Journal (pick of the month, starred review):
"After almost six years since his last novel, SINCE WE WELL, 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."
Junot Diaz (Pulitzer Prize winner, Guggenheim and Macarthur Fellow):
“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.”
S.A. Cosby (NYT Bestseller, Anthony Award Winner):
"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."
Gillian Flynn (NYT Bestseller, author of Gone Girl):
“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.”
Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award-winning author:
"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."