March 2026 Book -"SMALL MERCIES" by DENNIS LEHANE

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.