Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane

It's the summer of 1974 and the city of Boston is on edge because, come September, the public schools in the city will be desegregated. Mary Pat's daughter, Jules, is a senior and will be bused to Roxbury High School. Then, one evening Jules doesn't come home and Mary Pat begins a search for her, fearing the worst. Jules' disappearance coincides with the death of a young black man in their working class Irish neighborhood. The man, Auggie Williamson, was in the area because his car had broken down, and his death seems to be racially motivated. Could the two cases be connected? As Mary Pat digs deeper--questioning the people Jules was with that night and asking for help from members of the local mob (whom she knows very well), she finds herself on a bloody, violent path with nothing to lose. Small Mercies is a vivid, searing depiction of 1970's Boston with an extremely memorable main character in Mary Pat.