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.

As richly complex and brutal as the terrain it depicts, here is the mesmerizing, darkly original novel that heralded the arrival of Dennis Lehane, the master of the new noir--and introduced Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, his smart and tough private investigators weaned on the blue-collar streets of Dorchester.

A cabal of powerful Boston politicians is willing to pay Kenzie and Gennaro big money for a seemingly small job: to find a missing cleaning woman who stole some secret documents. As Kenzie and Gennaro learn, however, this crime is no ordinary theft. It's about justice, about right and wrong. But in Boston, finding the truth isn't just a dirty business . . . it's deadly.

Set in Boston at the end of the First World War, bestselling author Dennis Lehane's extraordinary eighth novel unflinchingly captures the political and social unrest of a nation caught at the crossroads where past meets future. Filled with a cast of richly drawn, unforgettable characters, The Given Day tells the story of two families--one black, one white--swept up in a maelstrom of revolutionaries and anarchists, immigrants and ward bosses, Brahmins and ordinary citizens, all engaged in a battle for survival and power. Coursing through the pivotal events of a turbulent epoch, it explores the crippling violence and irrepressible exuberance of a country at war with, and in the thrall of, itself.

New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane's classic novel featuring beloved P.I.s Kenzie and Gennaro captures the dark realism of Boston's gritty blue-collar streets

When Patrick first meets Karen Nichols, she strikes him as a naive woman from a protected upbringing, untouched by tragedy. But six months later Karen commits suicide by leaping from one of Boston's monuments. Patrick finds himself wondering what can alter someone so drastically, so quickly, that suicide seems her only option. yet Patrick soon suspects that the tragic events that befell Karen during the last months of her life--an "accident" that destroyed her fiance; the loss of her job, her apartment, and eventually her mind--may not have been as random as they first appeared.

Enlisting the aid of his ex-partner and ex-flame, Angela Gennaro, as well as that of his friend, the lethally unbalanced Bubba Rogowski, Patrick enters into a treacherous game of cat-and-mouse with a man who, instead of merely killing his victims, prefers to make them wish they were dead. As Patrick, Angie, and Bubba wage psychological warfare with this brilliant, depraved sociopath, they discover they might be fighting a losing battle against an enemy who is determined to tear their worlds apart.

"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.

From Dennis Lehane, bestselling author of The Given Day, comes a spellbinding tour de force that brings to life a bygone era when vice was a national virtue

Boston, 1926. Prohibition has given rise to an endless network of underground distilleries, speakeasies, gangsters, and corrupt cops. Joe Coughlin, the youngest son of a prominent police captain, has graduated from a childhood of petty theft to a career in the pay of the city's most fearsome mobsters. But life on the dark side carries a heavy price. Beyond money and power, even the threat of prison, one fate seems most likely for men like Joe: an early death. But until that day, he and his friends are determined to live life to the hilt.

Joe's dizzying journey up the ladder of organized crime takes him from the flash of Jazz Age Boston to the sensual shimmer of Tampa's Latin Quarter to the sizzling streets of Cuba. Live by Night is a riveting epic layered with loyal friends and callous enemies, tough rumrunners and sultry femmes fatales, Bible-quoting evangelists and cruel Klansmen, all battling for survival and their piece of the American dream.

Boston private detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro are hired to find four-year-old Amanda McCready, abducted from her bed on a warm, Indian summer night. They meet her stoned-out, strangely apathetic mother, her loving aunt and uncle, the mother's dangerous drug-addled friends, and two cops who've found so many abused or dead children they may be too far over the edge to come back. Despite enormous public attention, rabid news coverage, and dogged police work, the investigation repeatedly hits a brick wall. Then a second child disappears....As the two detectives intensify their search, they encounter a media more interested in sensationalizing the abductions than solving them, a midnight ransom drop that explodes into a firefight, a city seething with secrets and rage, and a faceless power determined to keep the children lost forever.

THE TIMES THRILLER OF THE MONTH APRIL 2023 '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.

Along with completely original material, this new collection is a compilation of the best of Dennis Lehane's previously published short fiction, including "Until Gwen," which was adapted for the stage in 2005 and appears in this book as the play Coronado. By turns suspenseful, surreal, romantic, and tragically comic, these powerful tales journey headlong into the heart of our national myths--and reveal that the truth awaiting us there is not what we would expect.

Boston private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro are hired to find four-year-old Amanda Cready. Despite extensive news coverage and dogged investigation into her abduction, the police have uncovered nothing. And as the Indian summer fades, Amanda McCready stays gone - vanished so completely that she seems never to have existed. Then a second child disappears. Confronted with a police force seething with lethal secrets, Kenzie and Gennaro soon discover that those who go looking for the missing may not come back alive.