Book Review--Mercy, by Jodi Picoult

I've mentioned before that I love Jodi Picoult. I love the way she writes about pressing social issues and the way she treats them with such sensitivity and depth.

Mercy is about a mercy killing. A man, Jamie, kills his wife, whose body is riddled with cancer, by smothering her with a pillow. He confesses immediately to the police chief, who happens to be his cousin, Cam. Cam then has the difficult job of arresting his cousin, and then aiding in his prosecution.

Meanwhile, Cam's wife, Allie, is doing her best to help Jamie. She seems to feel a kinship with him in that they both have or had an extraordinary devotion to their spouses. Allie is impressed that Jamie loved his wife so much that he would go so far as to kill her when she asked. But while Allie helps Jamie and Cam helps the prosecution, the distance between them grows. Complicating matters further, Cam finds himself thinking about Allie's new assistant, Mia.

Did Jamie really agree to kill his wife because he loved her so much that he only wanted to end her suffering? Or was it because it had become too hard for him to watch her suffer? Or was it because she had changed from the person he had loved so much into one he no longer wanted to be around? These are the questions that the book raises. As with her other books, Picoult provides no easy answers, but compels the reader to consider the questions.