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Denise Mina
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Garnethill Kindle Edition

by Denise Mina (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 1,687 ratings
See all formats and editions
Maureen O'Donnell wakes up one morning to find her therapist boyfriend murdered in the middle of her living room and herself a prime suspect in a murder case.
Desperate to clear her name and to get at the truth, Maureen traces rumors about a similar murder at a local psychiatric hospital, uncovering a trail of deception and repressed scandal that could exonerate her - or make her the next victim.
"A shattering first novel... You can't look away from it."-New York Times Book Review

"I can't think of a more interesting - and less likely - crime hero than Maureen O'Donnell, the damaged but determined center of Denise Mina's marvelous debut mystery. . . . The book bristles with angry energy and the spare urban poetry of its unique language." -Chicago Tribune

"A groundbreaking book . . . its emotional rawness and visceral honesty pack a punch more potent than any boxer-turned-PI could provide."-Washington Post Book World

"This raw, powerful story is an exceptional debut." -Kansas City Star

"A compelling story. . . . This is the reason we read mysteries." -Rocky Mountain News
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  1. Book 1 of 3
    Garnethill
  2. Print length
    450 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  5. Publisher
    Back Bay Books
  6. Publication date
    September 20, 2007
  7. File size
    2008 KB
  8. Page Flip
    Enabled
  9. Word Wise
    Enabled
  10. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  11. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Garnethill (the name of a bleak Glasgow suburb) won the John Creasey Memorial Award for Best First Crime Novel--the British equivalent of the Edgar. It's a book that crackles with mordant Scottish wit and throbs with the pain of badly treated mental illness, managing to be both truly frightening and immensely exhilarating at the same time.

Maureen O'Donnell, surely one of the most unlikely crime solvers in recent history, comes from a family so seriously dysfunctional that it deserves a television series of its own. Her mother is an overly dramatic alcoholic who "could scene-steal from an eclipse"; her brother Liam is a bumbling drug dealer; and the black sheep of the family is a sister who went to London and became a Thatcherite. The troubled but gutsy Maureen decides to dump her boyfriend, Douglas--an abusive (and married) psychologist she met while a patient at a sex-abuse clinic. After a night of drinking with a friend who's a social worker, Maureen wakes up to find that Douglas has been tied to a kitchen chair in her flat with his throat slashed. As someone with both a motive and a history of mental illness, Maureen is the most likely suspect--until a second, similar murder occurs that links the crimes to a local psychiatric hospital. Denise Mina, who has a background in health care, law, and criminology, is definitely a writer to watch. --Dick Adler

From Publishers Weekly

From its opening pages, this winner of the 1998 John Creasy Memorial Award for best first crime novel pulls readers inexorably into the tortured world of sexual abuse victims and their struggle to survive as whole people. Eight months after spending almost half a year in a Glasgow psychiatric hospital devoted to treating sex abuse victims, Maureen O'Donnell is desperately trying to hold together her shattered life. Bored with her job at a theater ticket office and depressed because her affair with one of the hospital's doctors, Douglas Brady, is over, Maureen and a friend get drunk. The next morning Maureen finds Brady's body in her living room, his throat cut. With bloody footprints matching Maureen's slippers at the scene, Detective Chief Inspector Joe McEwan sets out to prove the woman's guilt. He's not alone in thinking her the culprit: to Maureen's shock, both her alcoholic mum and Douglas's politician mother also think she's the killer. Convincing them that she isn't becomes her goal. She picks up a rumor about one of the hospital therapists having sex with a patient and learns that, before his death, Douglas gave formerly hospitalized victims large sums of money. Maureen begins to suspect Douglas's killing is connected to the hospital's clinic. Did a relative of a molested client kill Douglas? Or was the deceased about to turn in a colleague who raped patients? With sharp dialogue and painfully vulnerable characters, Mina brings Maureen's world of drug dealers, broken families, sanctimonious health-care workers and debilitated victims to startling life. Maureen's valiant struggle to act sane in an insane world will leave readers seeing sex abuse victims in a new light.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000W5MIJY
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Back Bay Books; Reprint edition (September 20, 2007)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 20, 2007
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2008 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 450 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 1,687 ratings

About the author

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Denise Mina

Denise Mina

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Denise Mina was born in Glasgow in 1966. Because of her father's job as an engineer, the family followed the north sea oil boom of the seventies around Europe, moving twenty one times in eighteen years from Paris to the Hague, London, Scotland and Bergen. She left school at sixteen and did a number of poorly paid jobs: working in a meat factory, bar maid, kitchen porter and cook. Eventually she settle in auxiliary nursing for geriatric and terminal care patients.

At twenty one she passed exams, got into study Law at Glasgow University and went on to research a PhD thesis at Strathclyde University on the ascription of mental illness to female offenders, teaching criminology and criminal law in the mean time.

Misusing her grant she stayed at home and wrote a novel, 'Garnethill' when she was supposed to be studying instead.

'Garnethill' won the Crime Writers' Association John Creasy Dagger for the best first crime novel and was the start of a trilogy completed by 'Exile' and 'Resolution'.

A fourth novel followed, a stand alone, named 'Sanctum' in the UK and 'Deception' in the US.

In 2005 'The Field of Blood' was published, the first of a series of five books following the career and life of journalist Paddy Meehan from the newsrooms of the early 1980s, through the momentous events of the nineteen nineties. The second in the series was published in 2006, 'The Dead Hour' and the third will follow in 2007.

She also writes comics and wrote 'Hellblazer', the John Constantine series for Vertigo, for a year, published soon as graphic novels called 'Empathy is the Enemy' and 'The Red Right Hand'. She has also written a one-off graphic novel about spree killing and property prices called 'A Sickness in the Family' (DC Comics forthcoming).

In 2006 she wrote her first play, "Ida Tamson" an adaptation of a short story which was serialised in the Evening Times over five nights. The play was part of the Oran Mor 'A Play, a Pie and a Pint' series, starred Elaine C. Smith and was, frankly, rather super.

As well as all of this she writes short stories published various collections, stories for BBC Radio 4, contributes to TV and radio as a big red face at the corner of the sofa who interjects occasionally, is writing a film adaptation of Ida Tamson and has a number of other projects on the go.

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
1,687 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Here is my honest opinion
5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous series
Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2011
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This is such a good series I am surprised that the author is not better known in America. This book, is about a normal young woman, Maureen, who is not a "super sleuth", but is thrown into trying to find out who killed her boyfriend in her very own living room while she was out getting severely drunk. She wasn't trying to clear her name, like I would have expected, she just wanted to find out who killed her married lover right before she was going to break off with him. As you can guess, Maureen is not the perfect person that some authors make their protagonists, but neither is she all bad. Like the other characters in the series she is a combination of good and bad, strong and weak.

The characters are well developed and very believable. The plot kept me up nights reading. In fact, when I finished this book I immediately started on "Exile" and after that "Resolution". These are all full novels, not skimpy novellas, so it is a testament to the draw of the series that I read them in succession without taking a break to read another genre from my voluminous "to read" pile.

Excellent series. The only "improvement" I would make would be to add a Scottish-American English dictionary as I was lost on some of the Glasgow slang for the first book and a half.

Highly recommended, but I suggest you read them in order as, although they can be enjoyed separately, they are really a continuation of a story.
14 people found this helpful
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C. Vale-Allen
4.0 out of 5 stars Very good, but ...
Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2001
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Here is a mystery with splendidly conceived characters, a plot like a snake that winds sinuously in and out of dark places, and a powerful sense of place. The Glaswegian manners of speech and terms of affection (hen, pet) are rendered with kindness and humor. It's literally one of those books that you can't put down.
I have just one quibble: Why did the author feel it necessary to muddy the waters by introducing the issue of recovered memories/false memory syndrome? For those unfamiliar with the tragic, and ongoing, repercussions of the recovered memory craze (from the mid-80s to the latter part of the 90s), the issue won't be clarified by Denise Mina's tinkering with her heroine's history. She gives Maureen (one of the spunkiest, most likable characters I've read in ages) a history that contends she actually forgot egregious sexual abuse by her father. Initially, it appears as if there was only one occasion of abuse. But as the book progresses, it transpires this was a long-term ongoing thing.
With all due respect to Ms. Mina, people simply do not forget, wipe out, or otherwise misplace recall of repeated sexual abuse. There are legions of us who dearly wish that were possible. So while she's got the emotions and the details just right of how an abuse victims thinks and behaves, she's got this part wrong. And it's something that isn't even essential to the plot of this book. A large number of families of sexually abused people refuse to believe the truth. It wasn't necessary to include recovered memories in order to paint Maureen O'Donnell's family in dark shades. Their characters are so well drawn that the darkness is there, and denial is central to disfynctional families.
Fortunately, the author doesn't overdo this issue. But it was of concern to me to see that, according to her biographical material, she is currently researching a book on false memory syndrome. That smacks of obsession, which is a pity, because her sympathy for the dispossessed, the disturbed and the victimized is everywhere evident in her work. It would be a shame to see another book from this talented author that, again, beats a dead horse.
Garnethill is otherwise a great reading experience, with characters I'd certainly like to see again.
6 people found this helpful
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Ravenhill
5.0 out of 5 stars 1st in a trilogy, but can stand alone...brilliant
Reviewed in the United States on February 23, 2017
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Denise Mina has become a favorite of mine. No spoilers here.

Her female lead is a flawed protagonist who does make mistakes at times. All of the characters and situations are extremely HUMAN and realistic, and the devil is in the details when portraying that....she's got it down.

Her descriptive language is perfect...not flowery, but direct and often humorous. Descriptions made me laugh a few times...they are artful and sometimes tongue in cheek. Same with some language. but she can also get emotional reactions that are not humorous...be ready.

It is mind-boggling that this is a first novel.

The setting is Scotland, and books are peppered with slang. Word use, especially spoken, is different from British English, or American, so you may spend a wee bit of time puzzling a few things out, or looking a few things up, until you get used to that kind of structure. I personally adore a setting with authentic language. It is NOT unreadable by any means.

These are an excellent blend of mystery and thriller while also giving a clear look at modern social issues and a little of the past of Scotland. It's done so seamlessly that you will hardly know you learned things.
22 people found this helpful
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zorba
3.0 out of 5 stars Good, But a Little Overdone
Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2010
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This is a good book, with creative characters and a grimy setting (Glasgow) but I thought it was a bit overdone. The lead character, Maureen O'Donnell, a victim of incestual abuse and resultant emotional meltdown, sets out to find the murderer of her lover. The search takes her all over Glasgow and through its mental health infrastructure until she IDs and deals with the bad guy. Maureen is a most unlikely sleuth -- although a ticket seller at a cinema she seems to possess insights that rival Sherlock Holmes. But, on the other hand, she is a remarkably well-drawn character, as are most of the others in this first novel. But I still found it a bit overdone. I thought the plot was too long and entirely predictable. Some of the dialogue was too artificially flippant. And Mina has a slight tendency to drift. But, these are small points. Denise Mina has crafted an enjoyable book about unenjoyable subjects: abuse and rape. I'd say it's worth a read.
5 people found this helpful
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Helen Frith
2.0 out of 5 stars Plot too complex to follow
Reviewed in Mexico on April 19, 2021
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I was enthusiastic about this book because it seemed so different from the unimaginative, one dimensional crime novels such as the ones by John Grisham. However, there is so much happening it's impossible to understand the story. It just rambles on and on at a confusing pace. Gave up after about 3 chapters.
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ged
5.0 out of 5 stars Compulsively readable
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 5, 2023
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I'd been reading a bunch of Kindle samples, to find books for my travels this year; but once I started Garnethill--my first Denise Mina--I couldn't stop, and it sucked me to the end. That's why I'm writing this review, as that doesn't happen to me often.

It surprised me, because so far I've not taken to contemporary Scottish fiction, either crime or literary. Also because Garnethill is palpably a first novel, with clear flaws. But Mina has such a gift for bringing life to the page that I was drawn along by an addictive lucidity. Somehow, unlike many writers who describe the tough reality of social and psychological issues, such as drugs, mental health struggles, abuse, incest, etc., Mina, for me, is never remorselessly grim. In the midst of all the shocking events she describes, she keeps the flames of humanity burning. Personally, I felt a great warmth towards the central characters Mauri, Leslie, and Liam. Despite their flaws, I rooted for them and wanted to see them through.

Why I love Denise Mina and not, say, Ian Rankin, I don't know. It's a mystery why now and again I want to read everything by a certain writer and nothing by another. But it feels a great moment when I do find a writer like that, as I'm always scratching discontentedly for something to read. For me, Mina is a 3D writer--she somehow draws me inside her fictional reality, so that I hardly know I'm reading. When she describes something, it stays described. Her prose style is clear but not plain--there's a sensuousness to it, a sinuousness: it's never dry. Though Garnethill is crime fiction, it works as literary fiction for me too, because the language feels fresh and colloquial. At the same time, there's no straining at Scots demotic. Mina somehow captures Scottishness and a Glasgow feel without making non-Scots readers process spelled-out dialect all day. This book is wonderfully pacy.

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.

Such a joy knowing I have have this writer to explore now. I'm going to save the next two in the trilogy for my travels; but I'm already well into Still Midnight (different, more controlled, just as addictive), the first in Mina's detective series.
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sharyn
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant
Reviewed in Australia on October 22, 2020
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Phenomenally good: funny, sad, brutal, gripping all at once. Every character was complex and well written and utterly plausible. The scene setting was excellent, not a travelogue but a real vision of Glasgow. I’m off to buy the next one.
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B.j. Grandy
5.0 out of 5 stars Tough Topics and Heartfelt Moments
Reviewed in Canada on August 17, 2015
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I loved this book! The plot and pace kept me thoroughly intrigued, and descriptions left vivid images in my mind, especially a few which caused me to pause and reflect, wonderfully different. And such heartfelt characters and touching moments, so beautifully written! I am so glad this novel is one in a trilogy and I can see what's next for Maureen.
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bob
5.0 out of 5 stars Ein echter Thriller
Reviewed in Germany on February 5, 2013
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Denise Mina nimmt den Leser mit in ein Glasgow, das ich, wenn auch nur für ein paar Stunden, genauso gesehen und wahrgenommen habe.
Das psychologische Profil der Anti-Heldin in all seiner Zerissenheit ist so ausgefeilt, daß jeder ihrer Schritte, so falsch er auch erscheinen mag, nachvollziehbar wird.
Ich habe mit Maureen gelitten, gebangt und gehofft, ihre Geschichte geht unter die Haut.
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