Joanna Hines, author of crime fiction and historicals, including The Murder Bird and Surface Tension two novels I've particularly enjoyed this year, presents her pick for the season:
"It’s impossible to identify a ‘best’ crime novel for 2007 - there have been so many good ones. So I’m going to focus on one that is still fresh in my mind and which, because I read it some time after paperback publication date, I’ve been unable to review elsewhere. The Dead Hour, by Denise Mina, has been a wonderful discovery.
Glasgow in 1984 and Paddy Meehan is working the night shift for the local paper, which involves listening to the police radio and following up likely stories. She’s from a Catholic family, her father has been unemployed for four years and she is the only one of four children still living at home to be bringing in a wage. The police have been called to a ‘domestic disturbance’ and Paddy catches a brief glimpse of a frightened, battered woman before the ‘husband’ presses a fifty pound note into her hand, buying her silence. The two police on the scene, who have also been paid off, describe her as ‘only wee Meehan’. After they leave, the woman is brutally murdered. It becomes a matter of personal pride for Paddy to find who killed her.
‘Only wee Meehan’ is a wonderful protagonist. The nature of her work means that she suffers from constant sleep deprivation ‘like a fever, shifting the turn of her eye, moving everything slightly sideways’. Overweight and scruffy, she is frequently underestimated, but she has toughness, humour and integrity. Denise Mina writes brilliantly, and the story doesn’t flag for a moment. A terrific read."
Recent Comments