Once again Denise Mina delivers a clever, complex plot driven along by hard-hitting prose and realistic and believable characters, especially DI Alex Morrow.
Murder, corruption and blackmail. A fourteen year old girl, a vicious arms dealer and privileged lawyer are linked in a a two-decade-long story of power, abuse and love gone horribly wrong. Compelling reading.
In addition to our Lovereading expert opinion for The Red Road a small number of Lovereading members were lucky enough to be invited to review this title - 'The Red Road, displays many of the familiar strengths Mina-addicts will love: a smart and determined yet conflicted central character, an unusual and intriguing hook, some casually thrown-in one-liners and an ability to have the reader desperate to turn the page.' - Daniel Webb. Scroll down to read more reviews.
31st August 1997 Rose Wilson is fourteen, but looks sixteen. Pimped out by her 'boyfriend' and let down by a person she thought she loved, she has seen more of the darkness in life than someone twice her age.
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On the night of Princess Diana's death - a night everyone will remember - Rose snaps and commits two terrible crimes. Her life seems effectively over. But then a defence lawyer takes pity and sets out to do what he can to save her, regardless of the consequences. Now DI Alex Morrow is a witness in the case of Michael Brown - a vicious, nasty arms dealer, more brutal and damaged than most of the criminals she meets. During the trial, while he is held in custody, Brown's fingerprints are found at the scene of a murder in the Red Road flats. It was impossible that he could have been there and it's a mystery that Morrow just can't let go. Meanwhile, a privileged Scottish lawyer sits in a castle on Mull, waiting for an assassin to kill him. He has sold out his own father, something that will bring the wrath of the powerful down upon him.
We have asked a select number of members and browsers to review The Red Road. You can read their reviews below.
Daniel Webb - 'The Red Road, displays many of the familiar strengths Mina-addicts will love: a smart and determined yet conflicted central character, an unusual and intriguing hook, some casually thrown-in one-liners and an ability to have the reader desperate to turn the page.' Click here to read the full review.
Amanda Donovan - Denise Mina writes in a unique poetic yet gritty style...This book is a must for all crime fiction fans...it is guaranteed to shock and delight.' Click here to read the full review.
Ray Orgill - 'The Red Road is a cleverly constructed plot based in Glasgow... The story progresses to a believable and satisfactory conclusion though the journey is very exciting and tense. I hope we see more of DI Morrow.' Click here to read the full review.
Magda North - 'I read a lot of crime fiction and am thrilled to find a new British author that I rate. The material is gritty but the writing is lovely.' Click here to read the full review.
Judith Smith - 'This is not a formulaic crime novel with a middle aged detective either alcoholic or recovering who is unable to form relationships but this has a young female detective inspector, married with twins facing significant challenges in a male dominated world.' Click here to read the full review.
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Praise for Denise Mina:
‘I am beginning to believe that Denise Mina is the finest contemporary exponent of British crime fiction, and that the Glasgow Detective Sergeant Alex Morrow is becoming its most interesting copper....Mina is terrific, too, at portraying the social and political backdrops that envelop her plots.’ Marcel Berlins, The Times
‘For aficionados of the genre there is a great deal to admire, not just in the elegance of the plotting... Mina's writing is lithe and spare, but alert... Readers inclined to be sniffy about genre fiction would do well to read Mina. As the parallel series progress they become more than the some of the individual novels, and metamorphose into a kind of 21st century Comedie Humaine – an excoriating look at the way that we live, and die, now.’ Scotsman
‘GODS AND BEASTS is vintage Mina: a complex three-ply plot involving a shooting, blackmail and corruption, all described with hard-hitting prose and psychological acuity.’ Sunday Telegraph
'One of the finest crime writers of her generation' Daily Express
‘This book has passages so powerful that you have to pause in reading it. I’m not ashamed to admit I cried…Writers like Mina are breaking the mould’ Scotland on Sunday
‘Denise Mina is one of the most original voices in crime fiction’ Daily Mail
‘Mina’s detached but unsentimental view of man’s humanity to man (and, more often, woman) never flinches. This is crime writing as morality tale’ Guardian
Author
About Denise Mina
Denise Mina was born in East Kilbride in 1966. Her first book, Garnethill, won the CWA Dagger for Best First Crime Novel. She has won the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year twice, and the MacIlvanney Prize twice. In 2017 she was named by The Times as one of the top ten crime writers of the decade.
A Glasgow cop with a nose for social injustice and the dark side of society, DS Alex Morrow is introduced in STILL MIDNIGHT by Scottish author Denise Mina, whose previous series featured investigative journalist Paddie Meehan and social worker Maureen O’Donnell. Realistic and bleak investigations with a strong footing in today’s reality are Mina’s forte in all her books.
