Garnethill

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My only negative comment is interactions with the police force. The whole story is narrated by Maureen and we only witness her interviews with police and her thoughts about the police investigation. Some of the interactions with the police seemed unreal. The author presents the police as either incompetent or corrupt. She used the same technique with the Paddy Meehan series. At times I had to suspend belief. This was another fantastic book though with a great bleak story and some fine dark humour. Once again everything is going wrong for these characters but the darkness is lifted by the sense of hope. Some things have definitely got better since Garnethill, things are running smoother in some ways for Maureen and her family but nothing is easy and it all feels real.

Battling her family, most of whom believe that she invented the child abuse at the hand's of their father/husband, battling her alcoholic mother, battling the police who believe she is the perpetrator, battling the MEP determined that Maureen is at fault and battling the police Maureen is determined to find out for herself who killed her boyfriend (who she had stopped caring about really). She has to learn who in her tight circle she can trust. I came upon the Garnethill series by Denise Mina as a suggestion from my carpool buddy. I had just finished reading Tana French's trilogy starting with In the Woods (fantastic!). I'm not typically a mystery/crime drama fan, but the Garnethill Series books are FANTASTIC! So good, and enjoyed my reading experience so much, I am working my way through ALL of Denise Mina's books (currently reading The Dead Hour). Garnethill was so good, just about the best book I read last year, that I've put off reading this for fear of being disappointed by it. The first book, which featured Glaswegian Maureen O'Donnell defending herself against accusations of being a murderer, would have been wonderful as a standalone but I couldn't see it as the start of a series. That would have defeated the realism that was an intrinsic part of its attraction. I've learned since that Mina is keeping this series as a trilogy and that understanding gave me more faith that the followup books would be as good as the first, and in this case at least, I was right. chancer - an unscrupulous or dishonest opportunist who is prepared to try any dubious scheme for making money or furthering his or her own ends.Maureen O'Donnell, the daughter of a severely dysfunctional family, has recently left the psychiatric hospital where she has been treated as a victim of sexual abuse. She lives in Garnethill, a suburb of Glasgow, and begins an affair with one of the therapists at the hospital, Douglas Brady. Denise Mina is an author I’ve been meaning to read for quite some time. As a fan of British crime thrillers, I’m always looking for new authors to try, and Denise Mina is an author to have been mentioned many times in the past. Thus, I decided to dive in with the Garnethill trilogy.

She thinks we’re big mates now. She said she knew she’d be safe because she’s got us to look after her.’ This is the second in Denise Mina's Garnethill trilogy. Mina does a good job of catching you up if it's been a while since you read the first one. If you haven't read the first one though, I'd definitely recommend starting there. I bought the Garnethill Trilogy to read on hols, but couldn't wait and devoured the first, Garnethill, yesterday. Maureen is child abuse survivor who has spent time in psychiatric care. She is having an affair with Douglas Brady, a society husband and son of Carol Brady, an MEP. One day Maureen finds Douglas dead, tied to a chair and throat slit. The killer has been very careful to ensure that Maureen is perfectly in the frame for the crime. Readers of Denise Mina’s work know what to expect, a strong female lead, great characters, mysterious plots, relatable worlds and an enjoyable reading experience from beginning to end. Denise Mina – In The Movies Sure, there's lots wrong with the book if you look closely. Garnethill has as many holes in the plot as most crime mysteries, to be fair. Key discoveries turn on coincidence. The scale of the crimes grows inconceivably large. But I was having such fun immersing myself in this wonderful adventure that I didn't care.Quite an interesting book, especially after reading the interview with the author at the end. Mina's protagonist is a woman and, based on the interview, was written to show that women can be strong and endure. Mina even calls out some of the the more prolific authors in the "women as protagonist" genre . . . rightly pointing out that they're parodies of how a woman would actually behave. It is hard to discuss too much about this book without giving away spoilers to the first two in the series, because this plot wraps up events from those books. On the whole this is a dark, gritty, violent series. It covers a gamut of issues from childhood sexual abuse, alcoholism, family dysfunction, infidelity, drug abuse, rape and of course murder. The protagonist, Maureen, as a drunken, self destructive incest survivor drives this whole trilogy. The closest character I can compare her to is Lisbeth Salander of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo fame.