Joan Mackenzie reviews Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane

Hello I'm Joan and this book is called Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane. I love Dennis Lehane. He’s perhaps best known for Mystic River. But my favourite book of his is The Given Day which was set in Boston as is this new one. It’s the story of Mary Pat who’s a hard-working mother. She works in a retirement home. She lives in The Projects. She had two husbands - one died and one left. Her son came back from Vietnam and died from heroin. And then her daughter Jules is worrying her sick. And when Jules goes missing Mary Pat will stop at nothing to find out where she is and what’s happened to her even if that means having to cross the local crime boss. But she’s not scared of him because she’s a mother who’s determined to find her daughter and to seek justice. The book is set in 1974 against the backdrop of a sweltering heatwave in Boston. And against a Federal law which required schools to be integrated. So in that particular area the white kids were to be bussed to black schools and vice versa. The rage the violence the simmering tensions the heat are all palpable in this book. The violence i’ss extraordinary. And Mary Pat is right at the foreground of all of that and determined to find her daughter and to seek justice.