Synopses & Reviews
Renate Dorrestein has been called the Dutch Iris Murdoch-with an extra leavening of wit. In
Without Mercy she reenters the edgy, chilling, domestic territory that in A Heart of Stone won her an instant American following. Richly layered and compelling, it is a heartbreaking, strangely funny, tense drama of past and present, reality and imagination, love and guilt-all within the nutshell of one country weekend meant to mend a fraying relationship.
"Perfect" was the word for Phinus and Franka Vermeer's marriage and for their image of their teenage son, Jem. But in the wake of his senseless murder, grief drives a wedge between them. Franka wants to keep Jem's memory fresh and cannot sleep for trying to. Phinus refuses to talk about it, combating sorrow and secret shame with thoughts of revenge. Rethinking and reimagining, they become ever more entangled in the secrets they keep from one another. Without Mercy is at once a suspenseful entertainment and a modern tragedy that lingers in the mind long after the book is closed
Synopsis
A provocative new novel from the Dutch author of the acclaimed A Heart of Stone plumbs the undercurrents of marriage and contemporary adolescence
About the Author
Renate Dorrestein, award-winning author of
A Heart of Stone, is one of Holland's best loved and bestselling novelists.
Hester Velmans's translation of A Heart of Stone won the Vondel Prize for Translation in 2001.