Character List for Small Mercies

South Boston “Southie” Characters

Mary Patricia “Mary Pat” Fennessey—the book’s protagonist, a native “Southie” and “tough Irish broad”

Julia “Jules” Fennessey—Mary Pat’s daughter; about to start her senior year of high school and missing

Noel Fennessey—Mary Pat’s son; dead from a drug overdose five years earlier

Kenneth “Kenny” Fennessey—aka Ken Fen; Mary Pat’s second husband who has recently left Mary Pat

Dukie Shefton—Mary Pat’s first husband, long deceased; an independent operator who still had to pay a percentage of his take to Butler for “protection”

Anthony “Tony Chap” Chapstone—Dukie’s (and eventually Mary Pat’s) lawyer

Louise “Weezie” Flanagan—Mary Pat’s deceased mother

“Big Peg” McAuliffe—one of Mary Pat’s sisters; married to Terry McAuliffe

“Little Peg”—Big Peg’s eldest daughter who’s the same age as Jules

Ronald “Rum” Collins—purportedly Jules’s boyfriend (as a cover for Toomey)

Brenda Morello—Jules’s best friend since second grade

Marty Butler—leader of a Southie “protection” crew

Brian Shea—top organizer/enforcer in Butler’s crew

Donna (Dougherty) Shea—Brian Shea’s wife; an old childhood friend of Mary Pat’s

George Dunbar—known drug dealer and Morello’s purported boyfriend (as a cover for Butler)

Lorraine Dunbar—George’s mother and Marty Butler’s girlfriend

Terry “Terror Town” McAuliffe—part of Butler’s crew; married to Big Peg

Frankie “Tombstone” Toomey—the “killer of killers” in Butler’s crew; Jules’s “real” boyfriend (despite being married with four kids)

Agnes Toomey—Toomey’s wife

Tommy Gallagher—bartender at the Fields of Athenry, a bar that serves as Butler’s stronghold

“Weed”—part of Butler’s crew

Larry Foyle—part of Butler’s crew

Lou Shapiro—murder victim from a few years earlier with no next of kin but a lucrative estate of businesses that everyone assumes Butler owns

SWAB Sisters—a group of women who belong to the protest group Southie Women Against Busing; the leader is Carol Fitzpatrick, and Mary Pat was apparently a member

Meadow Lane Manor

Sister Fran—one of the nuns at Meadow Lane Manor, an elder care facility where Mary Pat works as a hospital aide

Calliope Williamson—aka Dreamy; a co-worker of Mary Pat’s

Augustus “Auggie” Williamson—Calliope’s 20-year old son who’s found dead at Columbia Station (a commuter rail station that was renamed JFK/UMass Station in 1982)

Reginald Williamson—Calliope’s husband and Auggie’s father

Dottie Lloyd—co-worker of Mary Pat’s; their relationship is adversarial

The Cops

Detective Sergeant Michael “Bobby” Coyne—lead detective investigating the death of Auggie Williamson

Detective Vince Pritchard—Coyne’s partner on the case

Special Agent Giles Stansfield—FBI agent who may or may not be in Butler’s pocket

Drew Curran—medical examiner

Seamus Riordan—tower crane operator who is one of the witnesses at Columbia Station questioned by Coyne and Pritchard

Brendan Coyne—Bobby’s nine-year-old son

Shannon Coyne—Bobby’s ex-wife and Brendan’s mother

Carmen Davenport—Coyne’s new girlfriend, whom he meets at a random Narcotics Anonymous meeting, although he’s actually met and arrested her before