Denise Mina’s last few books brim over with fear of an oceanic tide of crime rising to drown what’s good in life. There’s more than a trace of paranoia in this, but what is frightening about her stories is the sense that Mina, a clear-eyed person, is afraid for a reason. Organized crime weaves itself into the fabric of what is on the surface an affluent seaside suburb of Glasgow. There are individuals who are deeply enmeshed in organized crime who walk among the law-abiding; it’s hard to tell who is who. Beyond the organized crime, serious drug use is all over the place. One of the saddest stories in “Blood Salt Water” revolves around a father and child who have been abandoned by a drug-using dissolute mother, who has gone far away to live with some low-life lover. Then there is the diplomatic service couple who use their position as a front for drug trafficking, or a Glasgow business dependent on fraud which is used for money laundering purposes. The underside of society seems destined to overwhelm the bonds of community, law, morality.
Aside from the view Mina projects – I would never call it “commentary” as Mina is much too skillful a writer to didactically provide a exposition of her fears – this is an incredibly well-crafted suspense plot. It took me some thought to piece together the crime after I put down “Blood Salt Water”. The actual linear story of the crime is complex and plotted out carefully by the perpetrators. It starts long before the “Blood Salt Water” opens with the first murder and weaves together a number of characters who at first look to having nothing to do with the central story. Juxtaposed over the story of the crime, we have an interesting and well-told story of the investigation of the crime. This is conducted by the ever-intelligent Alex(andra) Morrow, the lead policemen in Mina’s latest series of books. Morrow makes a number of astute deductions, several bordering on the inspired. Finally, layered on top of the crime and the investigation of the crime is a multi-character depiction of the rich Glasgow suburb, Helensburgh, where most of the story takes place. This is a triple tapestry, and it’s assembled effortlessly.
Obviously, I like “Blood Salt Water” a good deal better than many other reviewers here. For me, Mina is one of the most talented suspense writers ever to grace a dust cover jacket. Her command of details, ability to create suspense plots that are coherent from beginning to end, talent for fashioning interesting personalities, and -- finally -- ability to join them all together to convey a message, marks a primo writer. While I wouldn’t put “Blood Salt Water” among Mina’s very top efforts, I think it is in the upper half of the distribution – and that is rarified air, given what she has done over about a dozen novels. Strongly recommended.
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