Exile
by Denise Mina
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Book Summary Information
Author: Denise MinaEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2007-10-10
ISBN: 0316016802
Number of pages: 448
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780316016803
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Book Reviews of Exile
Book Review: It Reads as if Burnt on a Map of Glasgow
Summary: 5 Stars
"Exile,"second book in Denise Mina's acclaimed "Garnethill" trilogy, followed upon the earlier book's award-winning heels, for Garnethill; upon its publication in 1998, won the John Creasy Memorial Award for Best First Crime Novel. Mina was born in 1966 in East Kilbride, Lanarkshire, a suburban district near Glasgow; as her father was an oil engineer, she was moved, internationally, 21 times in childhood. She dropped out of school at sixteen, got a job: she worked in meat packing plants, as a waitress/bartender, all over the place, before returning to school, becoming a lawyer, and collecting some other post-graduate degrees, as well. So she was able to teach at university for several years before she was able to become a full-time writer. She's still a relatively young writer, with a relatively short career, and she writes the toughest Scottish-style tartan noir as her birthright. Tartan noir? As exemplified by Ian Rankin, its dean, and best-selling mystery author in the United Kingdom, it's blacker than average, more bloody-minded and violent, as many people consider the Scots to be, but still leavened by that sly Scottish humor.
"Exile" is set in some of the hardest neighborhoods of Glasgow, among some of its hardest people - and Glasgow was long known, internationally, as site of some of the hardest slums in the developed world -- "the Gorbals." It revisits the disorderly life of Maureen O'Donnell, thrown further off by the return of her abusive father, Michael, to the city. As if that weren't enough, she is being stalked by mail by former psychologist Angus Farrell, who is facing trial for the gruesome murder, in Maureen's flat, of her lover Douglas Brady, also a psychologist. Both men formerly employed in the asylum where Maureen had been sent while in crisis over the reawakening memories of the abusive father, Michael: they really shouldn't have been messing with her, or any other of their patients. However, Maureen is now working at the office of a Glasgow woman's shelter when in comes Ann Harris, severely beaten, with two broken ribs, stinking of alcohol. Two weeks later, Harris is found, abused/ beaten to death in a mattress in the Thames River, in London. Suspicion is bound to fall on her hapless husband Jimmie, struggling with no money and their four kids. He's cousin to Maureen's best friend Leslie, and the friends think he didn't do it. So Maureen takes off for London - if nothing else, it gets her out of her troubles for a while, to see what she can find. She's out of her depth in the mega city, but our Maureen is resolute.
The novel moves fast, and the writing is nothing short of scorching. Yes, there are a lot of scary characters, and a lot of violence, but in Mina's hands, it's almost poetry. She's unequaled at getting the ambiance of her native city, once famed for its shipbuilding, now on the post-industrial dust heap, on paper. It's all there, the black, dark cold Clyde River, once so important to shipbuilders, still the city's shivery spine (and, not so long ago, as a person long fascinated by the city, I spent a freezing July week in a hotel on the Clyde's banks). The fearsome climate. Even, quite likely partially as the result of that climate, the typical destructive Scottish lifestyle, also pointed out by Rankin - too much to drink, too much to smoke, too many sweets, and an early death rate unrivaled in the western world. Library Journal said, "A good suggestion for anyone who appreciates their mysteries dark, while the female bonding should appeal especially to fans of the Val McDermid mysteries." I say this book reads as though burnt on the map of Glasgow.
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