"What could have been a competent, topica novel about a mercy killing becomes, in Picoult's hands, an inspired meditation on love…a sensitive exploration of the balance of love."

  Publishers Weekly on Mercy

"MERCY, a quietly powerful book that examines theboundaries of love and loyalty, courage and forgiveness...Picoult writes with a fine touch, a sharp eye for detail and afirm grasp of the delicacy and complexity of humanrelationships,"

  The Boston Globe

Cameron MacDonald has spent his life guided by duty. As the police chief of a small Massachusetts town that has been home to generations of his Scottish clan, he is bound to the town's residents by blood and honour.Yet when his cousin Jamie arrives at the police station with the body of his wife and the bald confession that he's killed her Cam immediately places him under arrest.

The situation isn't as clear to Cam's wife, Allie. While she is devoted to her husband, she finds herself Siding against Cam, seduced by the picture Jamie paints of a man so in love with a woman that he'd do anything for her …even if that meant taking her life.

Into this heated atmosphere drifts Mia, a new assistant at Allie's floral shop. 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?