"On a rainy evening in the spring of 1967, Old Jerry hunkers on his bar stool like a liquor-soaked question mark..." So begins the story of Old Jerry, seventy years old, a lifetime drunk, and ready to die. His grandson Charlie has troubles of his own: the scars of a father's rage, a juvenile record, and brother P.T., who lives in another world with the ghost of their long-dead mother. When Old Jerry fails to show up for his birthday party at McGurk's Tap Room, these two young men are the first to ask questions. But the discovery of the old man's body in a nearby lake will send one off to war in Vietnam-and everyone else to pick up the pieces. Set in the dusky world of a working-class Midwestern city, The Mercy Killers tells a chilling story of actions taken in the name of love, and of histories spun from unspeakable pasts. "Sharply written and stylistically brilliant, The Mercy Killers I a wonderful novel of crime with an authentic human story at its heart." - Chicago Sun-Times "Reardon takes us into a world so complete...that nothing seems more important than reading these pages and discovering what her vivid, ferocious characters will do next." -Margot Livesey, author of Banishing Verona "Reardon...keeps the action churning away." - Chicago Tribune