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I can’t give this one star because the hours it kept me glued and entertained in the first half didn’t seem to warrant quite that rating. But if you ask me, well, better skip this one then. Released, Watt decided to investigate the murders himself and put out the word that he would pay for information. Peter Manuel came forward and the two men met for a drink in Glasgow. They spent eleven hours together, drinking, driving, talking.The next time they met was in the High Court in Glasgow, where Manuel was accused of those murders and many others. At twenty one she passed exams, got into study Law at Glasgow University and went on to research a PhD thesis at Strathclyde University on the ascription of mental illness to female offenders, teaching criminology and criminal law in the mean time.
Glasgow itself is an imposing element in her writing – the rhythm of the speech, the cadences of the humour, the sometimes restrictive feeling of a small city where family and strangers can become overfamiliar. If a reader were arriving fresh to Mina’s work, one of their early hits really ought to be her last book, The Long Drop, the semi-fictionalised account of the serial killer Peter Manuel and an evocative portrait of Glasgow in the 50s. This is one of the worst books I’ve read in a really long time. Forgive misspelling of names, I listened to the audio. Denise Mina brilliantly manages to be funny, heart-wrenching, gut-punching and addictive all at once: a fabulous, captivating novel" -- Nicci FrenchI recommend Denise Mina a lot to people who are looking for a strong, reliable crime author to add to their reading. CONVICTION is a strong standalone with a tough female protagonist and a super twisty European spree of a plot, I think it's a good place to start if you haven't read her before. Flood, Alison (20 July 2012). "Denise Mina wins crime novel of the year award". The Guardian . Retrieved 20 July 2012. Then an unexpected visitor arrives on her front stoop, a meddling neighbor intervenes, and life as Anna knows it is well and truly over. The devils of her past are awakened -- and in hot pursuit. Convinced she has no other options, she goes on the run, and in pursuit of the truth, with a washed-up musician at her side and the podcast as her guide.
The Long Drop is a fascinating, quietly insidious work, unsettling but absorbing" -- Marcel Berlins * The Times * Her meeting with Fin Cohen is what also gives energy to the story and it is their unusual coupling as a detective team that carries the novel.By the time my turn came around at the library for Conviction I had no recollection of where I had even heard of it. Then I saw it was part of the “Hello Sunshine” book club and basically when it comes to Reese Witherspoon . . . . Endlessly surprising... This incredible novel...seems to have been written in a white-hot rage.... Mina has always written with a head full of ideas and a mouth full of tough talk. Here, she’s finally got a story big enough to hold it all together. New York Times Denise Mina is a name I’ve seen mentioned quite a lot but I had never read any of her books before. Her latest release, Conviction, seemed like a good place to start.
A woman obsessed with podcasts starts investigating a man she once knew who is the star of one. Talk about an intriguing premise! It was while researching a PhD thesis on the ascription of mental illness to female offenders, and teaching criminology and criminal law at Strathclyde University in the 1990s, that she decided to write her first novel Garnethill, published in 1998 by Transworld. I] was gripped, impressed by her insight into the mind of a psychopath… A grim novel, but a very good one. Allan Massie, Yorkshire Post, 2017 Books of the YearA thoroughly modern tale of sexual and financial predation and social media… compelling Laura Wilson, Guardian I do still feel like that. A lot of artists don’t feel they could distil their national identity down to one. I don’t even feel it’s limited by Europe. I did grow up in Paris, Amsterdam and London but I don’t really know who is from here. All the artists I know are from other places as well.” To date, the entirety of Mina's work in comics has been published under DC Comics' Vertigo imprint:
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