The End of the Wasp Season [Hardcover]

Alex Morrow, is a tough Scottish detective. She has to be, she is a woman, and in this profession, you have to be tough, and besides she is a leader of men. She has just come from the funeral of her father, a man who had never been a father, but she loved him. Alex's brother, Danny, the equivalent of a mobster had planned the funeral. For that Alex was grateful and for nothing else. Alex is pregnant with twins, and this is a happy pregnancy, but for a detective in a busy unit, it causes some discomfort. Today, Alex was called to the home of a young woman, lying at the bottom of steep stairs, her faced stomped to bits. She was wearing a top but no panties, and came to be known among the squad as "The Legs'.

Denise Mina is one of the greats- my favorite author, Ian Rankin, considers her one of the most exciting new crime writers to come along. The fact that she is Scottish is a big plus. In this book she concentrates more on the characters than the plot. We are to have empathy for two young men considered to be suspects in this murder. We also meet their families and they are enough to give any of us chills. We also meet Kay, an old school friend of Alex's. She is a single mother of four, someone to be admired through her difficult life- a woman who loves her children and is there for them. And, we meet Sarah Errol, the murder victim. Denise Mina brings these charcters to life, we come to understand how they think and how they move through their lives. They matter, the victim, her family and the suspects and their families. Alex Morrow tries to keep her family close, never the twain shall meet. But, we do get a glimpse of Brian, and through her thoughts and actions, we come to find out how much Alex and Brian love each other. There is a softer side to Alex. She is very fair minded and always finds a way to bring the humaness to the murder victims, and the people she meets along the way. The men in her unit respect and admire her. It is Bannerman, the boss, who is disliked. Alex defends him, but understands the men's hatred. Bannerman was one of the characters who was a little misplaced in this novel. I am wondering if he will show up in the next novel.

Denise Mina is a brilliant crime writer- every detail is in place. The plot is well developed, but it is the characaters that are the most brilliant. We come to understand them, like them, even. Everyone except Bannerman, that is.

Highly Recommended. prisrob 09-29-11

Garnethill

Field of Blood: A Novel

I love Denise Mina's books. The atmosphere, the original characters, and the plot lines are all top notch. Invariably when I pick up one of her stories, I am completely entranced, and this was no different.

The End of Wasp Season tells the tale of a murder mystery and features a smart, witty, complex and strong female detective (Alex Morrow) as the primary crimesolver. The reader knows who is responsible for the murder early on, but the plot twists and turns and Morrow and her team try to figure it out. The story is deeper than just who is responsible for the murder. It also asks the question of who is responsible for the murderers. In addition, Mina's supporting cast of characters is, as ever, colorful. She seems to have a great sense of the politics going on around a police station and the jurisdictional catfights that sometimes ensue. It makes for a thriller that goes above and beyond its primary genre, reaching out into social issues that face us all.

The only warning I will give is to those who do not like graphic violence and/or strong language. These are features of all of Mina's novels and to me they add authenticity to her work. Thus I found this book to be nearly flawless and very difficult to put down. I look forward to a good night's sleep now that I've finished it.

Mina marries her talent for thrillers with the insights of a novelist, a vehicle for both the unraveling of a criminal act and an exploration of cumulative emotional abuse that ends in murder. As in The Garnethill Trilogy, Mina knows this territory, delving beneath the surface of a storyline to its murkier elements, twisted intentions, overburdened lives and the random events when reason fails and life is forfeit. In a tale that weaves between privilege and poverty, from Glasgow neighborhoods to a posh English boys' school, from the Strathclyde Police department to a family reeling from the suicide of a wealthy man, pregnant DI Alex Morrow begins an investigation into the murder of a young woman, a case that provides unexpected connections between disparate worlds bound by the mendacity of a privileged financier and the tattered spirit of a boy who uses rage as a palliative for pain. Her personal life newly hopeful, Morrow faces a difficult workplace, but refuses to be distracted as she pursues obscure leads in a brutal crime.

Building a tight plot on the particularities of the case and the personal dramas of primary characters, Mina is comfortable with ambiguity, intimate with human behavior from everyday exchanges to life-and-death moments, from petty one-upmanship to the terror in a woman's voice when she realizes she is about to die, the random idiosyncrasies that provoke a second thought for characters we instinctively don't like, the emotionally frazzled son crying because he "can't do it anymore", the frowsy mother with four teenagers who reacts to police questions with hostility, stroking her intimidated son's back for a bit of comfort, an elderly dementia patient who squeals with joy at the sight of her favorite caretaker, a prideful brother reaching clumsily for forgiveness. At the Strathclyde station, where Morrow's boss systematically undermines the goodwill of his officers to a shabby flat where empty crisp packets line the hallway and a woman ladles out a scant tea to the quiet of an ageing mansion, where two killers creep up the stairs on a venal mission, Mina creates both time and place with exquisite detail, the intricacies of plot sliding together as perfectly as a Rubik's Cube.

With sharp wit and edgy dialog, people engage in various states of connectivity, whether peripheral snarky characters or those around whom the interlocking mystery is built. The sly title comes home with the shock of a thunderclap, everything clear in a moment of truth, an ugly crime the fragile thread that unearths the dark seed that spawns a murder. Still, Mina cheers the soul, exploring the crevices of crime and motives, from the depraved to the truly desperate, as both good and bad wash ashore in a tumble of life's random pairings. There are moments when insights surpass the mendacity of small-minded men, a fractured world suffused with light: "She was more than the beasts of the earth or the indignities of being alive." Mina sweeps up the lost ones, discarded for one reason or another, and gives them voice, a mystery transformed from crime scene to the unveiling of human tragedy in all its forms. Luan Gaines/2011.

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