End Of Wasp Season [Paperback]

"The most exciting crime writer to have emerged in Britain for years" (Ian Rankin )

"[A] deft, multi-layered murder thriller from one of Scotland’s premier crime-fiction writers." (The Globe and Mail )

“Mina’s latest is a collection of brilliant character studies, all packaged up nicely in a first-class murder mystery. I can’t wait for more.” (Vancouver Sun )

"One of Denise Mina's many attractions is her willingness to take risks with her characters. She delves deeper than most into emotions, whether of the police, victims or perpetrators; she eschews the usual formula of crime fiction....The financial and moral disintregration of families, the iniquities of the class system and prostitution all play a role. Mina's best" (The Times (UK) )

"Perceptive and insightful at both ends of the social scale, Mina eschews cliffhangers and plot twists - here, pathos provides the fuel for real suspense. Marvellous" (The Guardian )

'...Thoughful attention to detail take the novel to another level...Scotland has produced some seriously good crime writers; The End of the Wasp Season places Denise Mina alongside Ian Rankin and Val McDermid' (Financial Times )

'This wonderfully plotted combination of police procedural, psychological thriller and social comment leap-frogs Denise Mina to the top rank of Scotland's crime-writing scene' (Irish Independent )

'She has immeasurably widened the scope of Scottish crime fiction, dragging its cliches out of the dark alleys and beating them to death in broad daylight' (The Scotsman )

'both a police procedural and a psychological thriller. Deftly plotted and, as with Mina's other work, always anchored by a strong seam of compassion for those characters at the sharp end of the class divide; who in this novel have the extra burdens of recession and cuts to social services to bear...A rewarding read which explores the significance of love in childhood and the dreadful damage wrought by its absence' (Tangled Web )

'A wealthy single woman wakes up in her mother's house to the sound of intruders creeping up the stairs. From this gripping start, Mina seizes our attention, and holds it until the final shocking twist in the tale' (Psychologies )

'It dispels with the whodunnit format, instead revealing everything at the start, and brilliantly spends the novel delving into the motivations and problems of a wide range of diverse characters' (The Big Issue )

'A glamorous young woman is brutally murdered in her home while a disgraced banker hangs himself in his garden. The heavily pregnant Morrow chases the case methodically, and we are also given narratives by Kay, a single mum down on her luck, and Thomas, the dead financier's spoilt teenage son. Mina's great skill is in keeping the reader hooked despite the lack of cliffhangers and twists, something she achieves through perceptive social insight and a refreshing eye for odd detail' (The List )

'Mina is an edgy, very Scottish crime writer whose stories are often pretty raw and do not flinch from making political and moral judgements' (Daily Mail )

'Denise Mina takes the grimmest material and makes it bearable with the warmth of her voice and the compassion with which she reveals her characters in all their inadequacy, cruelty or distress' (Times Literary Supplement )

When notorious millionaire banker Lars Anderson hangs himself from the old oak tree in front of his Kent mansion his death attracts no sympathy. One less shark is little loss to a world nursing a financial hangover. But the legacy of a life time of self-serving is widespread, the carnage most acute among those he ought to be protecting: his family. He leaves behind two deeply damaged children and a broken wife. Meanwhile, in a wealthy suburb of Glasgow, a young woman is found savagely murdered in her home. The genteel community is stunned by what appears a vicious, random attack. When DS Alex Morrow, heavily pregnant with twins, is called in to investigate, she soon discovers that behind the murder lurks a tangled web of lies. A web that will spiral through the local community, through Scotland and ultimately right back to a swinging rope hundreds of miles away.