SOURCE: Idema, James. “Fatal Decisions.” Chicago Tribune Books (1 October 1995): 6.

In the following review, Idema praises In the Name of Mercy as an entertaining, masterfully written novel that includes a number of compelling characters. Idema comments that, although Delbanco's views on the issue of doctor-assisted suicide seem ambiguous, the story is thoroughly engaging.

What seems for much of Nicholas Delbanco's riveting new novel to be an eloquent plea for legitimatizing euthanasia becomes in the long run more a cautionary tale. Man cannot be trusted with the institutionalized practice of assisted suicide, Delbanco appears to say. For all its merciful intentions, it is a deed so vulnerable to abuse as to be morally unacceptable. What is wrought “in the name of mercy” is often more wicked than good.

Meanwhile, to explore this enormously complex issue, Delbanco has [with In the Name of Mercy] written a terrifically entertaining book: a swift...