"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 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) Tom Nolan, Wall Street Journal Allan Massie, The Scotsman GODS AND BEASTS :Library Journal Entertainment Weekly Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) George Pelecanos Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review Christian Science Monitor Adam Woog, Seattle Times Maureen Corrigan, NPR.org People
"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."
★ 2014-02-06 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.
