Mercy
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4.1 • 47 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
'Mercy is a quietly powerful book that examines the boundaries of love and loyalty, courage and forgiveness. Picoult writes with a fine touch, a sharp eye for detail and a firm grasp of the delicacy and complexity of human relationships. - The Boston Globe
What would you do for someone you love? Would you lie? Would you leave? Would you kill? Jodi Picoult confronts these powerful issues in Mercy, which follows the path of two cousins driven to extremes by the power of love.
Police chief of a small Massachusetts town, Cameron McDonald makes the toughest arrest of his life when his own cousin Jamie comes to him and confesses outright that he has killed his terminally ill wife out of mercy. A heated murder trial plunges the town into upheaval and drives a wedge into a contented marriage: Cameron, aiding the prosecution in their case against Jamie, finds himself suddenly at odds with his devoted wife, Allie. She is seduced by the idea of a man so in love with his wife that he'd grant all her wishes, even her wish to end her life. And when an inexplicable attraction leads to a shocking betrayal, Allie faces the hardest questions of the heart: when does love cross the line of moral obligation? And what does it mean to truly love another?
Woven tight with passion and a fast-paced plot, Mercy explores some of today's most highly charged emotional and ethical issues as it draws toward its stunning conclusion.
Jodi Picoult's bestselling and widely acclaimed novels include Perfect Match, Salem Falls, Plain Truth, Keeping Faith and The Pact. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and three children. Read more about Jodi Picoult and her new novel Handle with Care on her website at www.jodipicoult.com.au
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
What could have been a competent, topical novel about a mercy killing becomes, in Picoult's (following Picture Perfect, 1995) hands, an inspired meditation on love. The setting is Wheelock, Mass., a slightly eccentric town where most of the residents are of Scottish descent, where weddings end in a blood vow, the name MacDonald is "painted on an alarming number of mailboxes" and police chief Cameron MacDonald doubles as clan chief and protector. On a seemingly ordinary day in Wheelock, Jamie MacDonald, a cousin of Cameron's, drives to the police station and announces: "My wife here, Maggie, is dead, and I'm the one who killed her." Cam finds himself saddled with a murder case and a conflict of interest: his cousin has given in to the pleas of his cancer-ravaged wife to kill her, and he's come to the clan chief to confess. But as police chief, Cam must also prosecute. On the same day, Cam's wife, Allie, the local florist, hires Mia, a violet-eyed beauty with a genius for flower arranging. Allie gets involved in Jamie's case, and Cam, who has spent his life in service to his community and his clan, falls in love with Mia and begins an affair that will bring his marriage to the breaking point and change it profoundly. Like Jamie, Allie is the marriage partner who loves more. "It's never fifty-fifty," says Jamie. As Jamie's court case proceeds, Picoult plumbs the emotional core of both marriages. The pace of the trial is slow, but Picoult pays loving attention to her central characters, fashioning a sensitive exploration of the balance of love.
Customer Reviews
Mercy
Great read,superb story, I would highly recommend it.