The Red Road by Denise Mina

 

First Line: 1997. Rose Wilson was fourteen but looked sixteen. Sammy said it was a shame.

 

Police detective Alex Morrow has a lot on her plate. She's missing being at home with her infant twin sons, true, but the possible overturn of the conviction of arms dealer Michael Brown has her worried. This is a brutal man who is not only guilty of the crimes he's been convicted of, but during the course of her original investigation, he threatened her life, the life of her husband, and the lives of her children. This is why she has to do everything within her power to make sure he stays in prison. 

 

Her search for the incontrovertible proof that will keep Brown behind bars leads Morrow to a lawyer expecting to be assassinated and a woman who's spying on the people who put her in jail.  No wonder she longs for some time with her babies! But Alex Morrow has always been the sort of police officer who insists on getting to the truth no matter what. Little does she know where her search for the truth is going to take her.

 

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Denise Mina is one of the best crime fiction writers out there. She puts readers right in the heart of Glasgow, Scotland-- "cynical Glasgow, a city exhausted of sorrow" -- and has them dine on a fine tale of crime and the search for truth. As far as I'm concerned, she's the absolute best at making readers understand and empathize with the marginalized, the people most avert their eyes from. In her books, like Garnethill and The Red Road, we meet the homeless, drug addicts, murderers, and former prostitutes. We learn why these people turned to drugs or sex work or killing. We see them trying-- and sometimes succeeding-- to turn their backs on their old lives, and while we may never condone what these people did, we can now understand and feel compassion. Most crime writers use the marginalized merely as victims and for shock value. Not Denise Mina, and this means that she has written some truly powerful stories.

 

In this series, police detective Alex Morrow isn't your usual cop. For one thing, her brother is a gangster. When criminals threaten to expose her relationship to a known felon, she tells them to go right ahead. You see, the police know it already; she hasn't hidden it from them. This is all a part of her "nothing but the truth and damn the consequences" method of policing. 

 

In all its twists and turns, Alex's investigation ties in with an old case that occurred on the day of Princess Diana's death-- a fact that led to some shoddy detective work and the realization that, for some of the world, Diana's death could be just another day. This fact alone will make many readers feel as though they're experiencing life in another country.

 

Denise Mina's storytelling ability combined with a sharply delineated cast of characters and a strong plot makes The Red Road a compelling and satisfying read. She is an author who never disappoints, and I'm looking forward to finding out what Alex Morrow does next. Man those torpedoes, Alex-- full speed ahead! 

The Red Road by Denise Mina

ISBN: 9780316188517

Little, Brown and Company © 2014

Hardcover, 304 pages

 

Police Procedural, #4 Alex Morrow mystery

Rating: A

Source: Purchased from The Poisoned Pen.

Gods and Beasts by Denise Mina

 

First Line: Martin Pavel heard it all as if through a pillow: the faint whine of ambulances, the helicopter murmur overhead, the muffled shouts of men in bulky uniforms, paramedics and cops shouting urgent instructions to each other-- GET THAT TAPE, MOVE THEM BACK.

 

Detective Sergeant Alex Morrow has barely returned to work from giving birth to twins and her plate is already full. A week before Christmas in a Glasgow post office, Martin Pavel finds his eyes locked on a small boy as the boy's grandfather helps gunmen gather all the money together. What Alex (and everyone else) wants to know is why did the old man volunteer to help the gunmen only to be killed? Was it an act of sacrifice or did the old man and his killer share a dark past?

 

The further into the investigation Alex gets, she's taken right to the door of Kenny Gallagher, a local politician fighting for his political life and his marriage after being accused of having an affair with a young woman. And what Alex doesn't know is that there is trouble in the form of blackmail and corruption brewing within her own ranks.

 

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You can always count on Denise Mina to tackle uncomfortable truths in her books, and she does it again in this third Alex Morrow mystery, Gods and Beasts. The framework of the book can be found in two quotes she uses. One from Abraham Lincoln: "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." The second from Aristotle: "Those who live outside the city walls and are self sufficient, are either Gods or Beasts." Gods and Beasts is the story of how some people abuse power, of how some people face the possibility of losing their jobs, of how the marginalized find themselves living from day to weary day. 

Mina is a master at writing about the marginalized, at writing about the grit and grime of living "outside the city walls" of Glasgow, and I once again found myself immersed in Alex Morrow's world as she tries to solve this crime, deal with her co-workers, and be a wife and mother. Mina's world isn't always pleasant. The days are often overcast and gloomy, and violence can blindside you. But there's comfort in knowing that someone like Alex Morrow is on the job. That someone like Alex Morrow will keep fighting the bad guys with intelligence and determination. 

There's a power to Mina's writing that you don't see every day. Take, for example, this one tiny scene that doesn't mean all that much in the scheme of things: "On the ground, by the side of the concrete front step, was a small ash tray, four half-smoked cigarettes laid out in a neat row, filters by filters, the burnt tips concertinaed. They made him think of diagrams of slave ships." This one small descriptive scene made this reader think of the smoker, so precise with those half-smoked cigarettes, so enslaved by an addiction to nicotine, but the scene keeps on giving. Diagrams of slave ships? My mind went on to think of people stolen from their homes, packed into filthy ships holds, and taken to work in tobacco fields. Of how slavery and poverty and drudgery grind people down. 

 

It's a tiny scene with so much depth and power that it still takes my breath away, and it's one of the many reasons why I read Denise Mina's books. If you haven't, I hope you'll give them a try. As much as I enjoy Mina's Alex Morrow series, I found her Garnethill trilogy and her novels featuring Paddy Meehan to be excellent. Don't miss out on Denise Mina, one of the founders of Tartan Noir.

Gods and Beasts by Denise Mina

ISBN: 9781443416856

HarperCollins © 2013

Paperback, 304 pages

 

Police Procedural, #3 DS Alex Morrow mystery

Rating: A-

Source: Purchased from Book Outlet.

The End of the Wasp Season by Denise Mina

First Line: The silence startled Sarah from a hundred-fathom sleep.

The brutal murder of Sarah Erroll in a wealthy suburb of Glasgow seems to be a vicious, random attack. When Detective Inspector Alex Morrow is called in to investigate, she finds she just may have a bit too much on her plate. Heavily pregnant with twins, she's soon to go on maternity leave, but she's got a team that's more interested in revolting against their superior officer than they are in solving a murder. Morrow has no liking for her superior officer either, but she's tired of the politics, tired of dealing with the drama, and tired of murder. But regardless of how she feels, Alex Morrow will do the job because the victim deserves justice.

I have long been a Denise Mina fan. I devoured-- and was spellbound-- by her Garnethill and Paddy Meehan trilogies, and enjoyed the first Alex Morrow mystery, Still Midnight, when it was first released. When I began reading The End of the Wasp Season, I almost felt as though I needed a re-read of that first book because Alex Morrow wasn't quite as I remembered her. Far from putting me off, I just dug in and lost myself in the story. 

I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few readers didn't care for this book. Likable characters are scarce on the ground, and we know the identity of the young woman's killer very early on. This didn't bother me however because there's no such thing as a two-dimensional character in a book written by Denise Mina. As she's already proven, she's a master at shining the spotlight on the disenfranchised, the outsiders, the broken souls that walk among us, and-- if not making them likable-- she makes them understandable and even, to a degree, sympathetic. To me, understanding a person is oftentimes more important than liking them, and I think Mina might agree. Occasionally shifting the point of view from Morrow to a troubled young boy named Thomas, the author helps us to comprehend the worlds both characters inhabit.

A lot of Alex Morrow's troubles in this book stem from in-house feuding. The superior officer is hated-- to the point that very few want to do anything at all that could possibly put the man in a good light. Morrow doesn't want to get mired in that bog, but as the investigation progresses at a slow crawl, she realizes that she's been cutting everyone too much slack because she's subconsciously marking time until her maternity leave. She's got to try her best to get everyone actively involved in the case, and she begins at the morning meeting in the incident room:

"Right," she said, and they settled. "Sarah Erroll was rich, pretty, young and leaves no family. Who cares? I do, but I think I'm the only one here." It was an unconventional start, surprising enough to make them sit up and listen. "My job is extra hard today because I have to try and manipulate you into giving a toss." She looked at them. "That's annoying."

I enjoyed this look at a dedicated homicide detective and at the havoc one selfish person can inflict on those around him. I enjoyed it a lot. But with its rushed ending and an overall sense of malaise, I can't rank The End of the Wasp Season in the top tier of Denise Mina's books. But even "second tier" is finer than many other writers' books. I have two more Alex Morrow books to read, and I'm definitely looking forward to them.

 

The End of the Wasp Season by Denise Mina

ISBN: 9780316069335

Little, Brown and Company © 2011

Hardcover, 400 pages

Police Procedural, #2 Alex Morrow mystery

Rating: A-

Source: Paperback Swap