"If anyone can make you root for the murderer, it's Denise Mina, whose defiantly unsentimental novels are less concerned with personal guilt than with the social evils that create criminals and the predators who nurture them. . . [The Red Road is] as fierce a story as any Mina has written."—Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review "Edgar-finalist Mina's fourth novel featuring Glasgow Det. Insp. Alex Morrow (after 2013's Gods and Beasts ) is perhaps her finest yet, a brilliantly crafted tale of corruption, ruined lives, and the far-reaching ripple effects of crime."—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) "Ms. Mina's narrative is full of suspense, fresh dialogue and sharp glimpses of all sorts of characters. Most interesting of all to watch is Morrow herself."—Tom Nolan, Wall Street Journal The plot is as compelling as it is intricate. Denise Mina grows in assurance and becomes more accomplished with every book; and this one is a cracker, beautifully worked-out, every scene serving a purpose. It demands concentration from the reader, but the story is so gripping that you are likely to hurry along, eager to learn how the plot unfolds. Eventually you arrive at a splendid abrupt and laconic conclusion, which rightly leaves some questions open. Then I suggest you may want to go back to savour the details, for this is that rare thing, a crime novel that invites, and benefits from, a second reading.—Allan Massie, The Scotsman PRAISE FOR GODS AND BEASTS : "Mina deftly stitches [the story lines] together in time for a powerful climax...Mina again plumbs the depth of the grungy Scottish metropolis, capturing political posturing, class differences, and familial dynamics with equal aplomb... Morrow [is] fast become one of the most intriguing cops in crime fiction. Fans of smart, character-driven procedurals will want to snatch this one up."—Library Journal Extraordinary Praise for Denise Mina: "Until further notice, just assume you should buy everything Denise Mina publishes."—Entertainment Weekly "Excellent...Mina ups the stakes by taking us into the dark, beating heart of modern Glasgow, where the real deals are struck and the spoils divided."—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) "With subtle humor and a keen eye for the darkness that lurks behind clean, well-lighted lives, Denise Mina confirms her reputation as one of the genre's brightest stars."—George Pelecanos "[A] thoughtful look at how good people can go bad."—Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review "Satisfying...thrilling....With consummate ease and flawless timing, Mina untangles the knot, leaving intact the enmeshed world she has so convincingly created."—Christian Science Monitor "Mina is adept at portraying Glasgow's blunt and often harsh nature-but also at finding sparks of humanity and humor in even the dumbest of criminals."—Adam Woog, Seattle Times "Like her fellow Scot, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mina relishes combining elements of the uncanny with crisp insights into the various diseases of the human psyche."—Maureen Corrigan, NPR.org "A piercing tale that should cement Mina's rep as one of crime fiction's finest."—People
If anyone can make you root for the murderer, it's Denise Mina, whose defiantly unsentimental novels are less concerned with personal guilt than with the social evils that create criminals and the predators who nurture them. The Red Road [is] as fierce a story as any Mina has written…
The New York Times Book Review - Marilyn Stasio
★ 02/24/2014 Edgar-finalist Mina's fourth novel featuring Glasgow Det. Insp. Alex Morrow (after 2012's Gods and Beasts) is perhaps her finest yet, a brilliantly crafted tale of corruption, ruined lives, and the far-reaching ripple effects of crime. Morrow is called to testify against Michael Brown, a recidivist offender whose prints have been found on confiscated guns. During the trial, Brown's prints turn up at a brand new murder scene. Have they been somehow planted by Brown from prison in a ruse to discredit evidence? Morrow follows a complex trail that leads back to two murders in 1997. One of the murders involved a teenage girl, Rose Wilson, who stabbed her abusive pimp to death; the other was 14-year-old Michael Brown's brutal slaying of his older brother, John "Pinkie" Brown. Wilson now works for her benefactor, elderly attorney Julius McMillan, as a nanny for McMillan's grandchildren. Meanwhile, Robert, Julius's son, has gone missing after an elaborate money-laundering scheme has turned south. Are these decades' old crimes somehow connected? Morrow thinks so, but seeing the investigation through just might cost her the career she's fought so hard to achieve. (Feb.)
"Like her fellow Scot, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mina relishes combining elements of the uncanny with crisp insights into the various diseases of the human psyche."
"With subtle humor and a keen eye for the darkness that lurks behind clean, well-lighted lives, Denise Mina confirms her reputation as one of the genre's brightest stars."
"Satisfying...thrilling....With consummate ease and flawless timing, Mina untangles the knot, leaving intact the enmeshed world she has so convincingly created."
Christian Science Monitor
"Mina is adept at portraying Glasgow's blunt and often harsh nature-but also at finding sparks of humanity and humor in even the dumbest of criminals."
Adam Woog - Seattle Times
"[A] thoughtful look at how good people can go bad."
Marilyn Stasio - New York Times Book Review
"A piercing tale that should cement Mina's rep as one of crime fiction's finest."
Extraordinary Praise for Denise Mina:
"Until further notice, just assume you should buy everything Denise Mina publishes."
09/15/2013 Police detective Alex Morrow testifies at the trial of truly nasty gun dealer Mark Lynch following an investigation that also hints at the assassination of a money-laundering Scottish lawyer. Note that the Stieg Larsson estate has chosen Mina to adapt the "Millennium Trilogy" for a graphic novel series and that The End of the Wasp Season was short-listed for the 2011 CWA Gold Dagger Award.
Cathleen McCarron’s wonderful native Scottish accent coupled with her storyteller’s delivery makes this complex mystery come to life. Her idiomatic English is fully accessible to any ear, but listeners will need to pay attention to the time transitions to keep up with the story. Where abrupt transitions can easily be handled in print, they’re a bit more difficult to keep on track in audio. McCarron uses a simple narrative voice throughout but with such verve and appropriate passion and inflection that it produces a stunning result. Her power is especially evident in strained situations like carrying on a conversation in an upper story of a demolition site, a scene in which she makes the reader feel the buffeting winds. M.C. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine
FEBRUARY 2014 - AudioFile
★ 2014-02-06 Fourteen years after Princess Diana died in a Paris automobile accident, the date of her death still casts a long shadow over the Strathclyde Police, in the fourth book featuring detective Alex Morrow. Rose Wilson, already an experienced prostitute at 14, celebrates Diana's death by killing two of the many males who've used her: Pinkie Brown, the boy she dreams about from another group home, and her pimp, Sammy McCaig. Despite her apathetic confession, she's released after a short prison term to become the nanny to the household of Julius McMillan, the lawyer who schemed to shield her from a stiffer sentence for reasons of his own. The death of the long-ailing McMillan traumatically reopens his affairs. Rose, still in the family's employ, grieves over the only person who's ever shown her any kindness. McMillan's son, Robert, convinced that paid assassins are hunting him, runs off and leases a castle to die in. And detective Alexandra "Alex" Morrow—after testifying against Michael Brown, who's spent most of his life in prison ever since he was convicted of killing his older brother, Pinkie, in Rose's place—has to deal with the discovery of Brown's fingerprints at the demolition site where charitable organizer Aziz Balfour was killed three days ago, even though Brown, clapped up for months, has the best of all possible alibis. While fighting off the flirtatious advances of Brown's defense attorney, Alex racks her brain over possible ways Brown could have left his prints at a murder scene miles from his prison, as Mina (Gods and Beasts , 2013, etc.), conscientious to a fault, casually dispenses further calamities, from clinical depression to Parkinson's disease, among the cast. In addition to the usual indelible character studies, Mina provides the most compelling plot of Alex's four cases to date, with a new round of revelations that makes the Glasgow cops the most corrupt since Philip Marlowe looked under all those rocks in Bay City, Calif.