Denise Mina

When a notorious millionaire banker hangs himself, his death attracts no sympathy. But the legacy of a lifetime of selfishness is widespread, and the carnage most acute among those he ought to be protecting: his family.
Meanwhile, in a wealthy suburb of Glasgow, a young woman is found savagely murdered. The community is stunned by what appears to be a vicious, random attack. When Detective Inspector Alex Morrow, heavily pregnant with twins, is...

A brilliant thriller featuring Paddy Meehan, one of the most praised heroines since Temperance Brennan, from "a rising star in the world of crime fiction" (Laura Miller, Salon).
Paddy Meehan is no stranger to murder — as a reporter she lives at crime scenes — but nothing has prepared her for this visit from the police. Her former boyfriend and fellow journalist Terry Patterson has been found hooded and shot through the head....

"A wealthy businesswoman disappears from her Glasgow home without a trace, leaving her husband and children panicked but strangely resistant to questioning. Tracing the woman's cell phone, police detective Alex Morrow discovers a call made from an unlikely location. A sleepy seaside community, Helensburgh is the last place you'd go looking for violence. But Morrow's investigation uncovers disturbing clues and a dead body in a nearby lake. When a connection...

Maureen O'Donnell wakes up one morning to find her therapist boyfriend murdered in the middle of her living room and herself a prime suspect in a murder case.
Desperate to clear her name and to get at the truth, Maureen traces rumors about a similar murder at a local psychiatric hospital, uncovering a trail of deception and repressed scandal that could exonerate her - or make her the next victim.
"A shattering first novel... You can't...

Police detective Alex Morrow has met plenty of unsavory characters in her line of work, but arms dealer Mark Lynch ranks among the most brutal and damaged of the criminals she's known. Morrow is serving as a witness in Lynch's trial, where the case hinges on his fingerprints found on the guns he sells. When the investigation leads to a privileged Scottish lawyer who's expecting to be assassinated after a money laundering scheme goes bad, and a woman...

The domestic dispute in a wealthy suburb seems like nothing unusual. The elegant blonde bleeding in the shadows doesn't want help; and the well-dressed, ingratiating man at the front door tells investigative journalist Paddy Meehan everything's fine. Then he asks her to make sure nothing appears in the paper, slipping cash into her hand. The next morning Paddy sees on TV: the blond woman had been tortured, beaten, and left to die. The untraceable...

"Denise Mina re-imagines the "Bonfire of the Vanities," a series of fires lit throughout Florence at the end of the fifteenth century-inspired by the fanatical Girolamo Savonarola. Girolamo Savonarola was a Dominican friar living in Florence at the end of the fifteenth century. An anti-corruption campaigner, his hellfire preaching increasingly spilled over into tirades against all luxuries that tempted his followers toward sin. These sermons led to...

When her fiancé's cousin is implicated in the murder of a young boy and a rival reporter leaks the story, fledgling Scottish journalist Paddy Meehan is forced to salvage her relationship with her future in-laws by clearing the cousin's name.

The last time Maureen O'Donnell saw Ann Harris, she was in the Glasgow Women's Shelter smelling of a long binge on cheap drink. A month later Ann's mutilated body, stitched into a mattress, is washed up on the banks of the Thames. No-one, except for Maureen and her best mate, Leslie, seems to care about what has happened to her, and Maureen is the only person who thinks Ann's husband is innocent. But solving Ann's murder comes as light relief. Maureen's...