Small Mercies

by Dennis Lehane

Back in seventh grade, Sister Loretta used to say that even if hell was not the firepit with the horned demons and the pitchforks that the medievalists supposed, it was, make no mistake, a void. It was an eternal separation from love. What love?

God’s love. Anyone’s love. All love. The pain from a pitchfork or even from an eternal flame cannot compare to the pain of that void.

But he knew they were really dead because they were in the way. Of profit. Of philosophy. Of a worldview that said rules apply only to the people who aren’t in charge of making them. Call them gooks, call them niggers, call them kikes, micks, spics, wops, or frogs, call them whatever you want as long as you call them something—anything—that removes one layer of human being from their bodies when you think of them. That’s the goal. If you can do that, you can get kids to cross oceans to kill other kids, or you can get them to stay right here at home and do the same thing.

Been waiting for a character like Bobby Coyne in this book. The one character that has had his head on straight since he was introduced.