Review by Booklist Review
A Dickensian gloom, compounded of spiteful rain, savage-looking buildings, and interiors with all the clutter and bareness of poverty, hangs over Mina's Glasgow. In this, the follow-up to the acclaimed Garnethill [BKL Ap 15 99], Mina again has us follow in the tortured steps of her broken investigator, Maureen O'Donnell. A child-abuse victim whose past is ever with her, O'Donnell works, somewhat, in a Glasgow shelter for battered women. Maureen's boss and sometime friend compels Maureen to join her in investigating the disappearance of a shelter regular, whose body is later found in the Thames. Maureen is drawn into the woman's past, populated by drug dealers, debt collectors, loan sharks, and two emaciated children, finding her own messy life receding in interest as her involvement with the investigation grows. Mina, a former criminal law professor, writes with absolute assurance and clarity about mean streets and hard lives. --Connie Fletcher
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Following her Creasy Award-winning debut, Garnethill (1999), Mina delivers a second powerful novel with the same self-destructive characters, notably protagonist Maureen O'Donnell, and the same grim, gritty British locales. Maureen, while working at a shelter for abused women in Glasgow, gets pulled into the search for a missing shelter client, Ann Harris, the wife of her friend Leslie's feckless cousin, Jimmy. When Ann's mutilated corpse turns up in the Thames, Maureen agrees to go to London to investigate for Leslie, in part to escape her depressing life, burdened by flashbacks to her lover's murder, fights with her new boyfriend, a job she dislikes, estrangement from her alcoholic mother, and a long-absent abusive father whose sudden return frightens her and haunts her dreams. In seedy Brixton, a closed and suspicious community where grungy exile Glaswegians deal dope and brutalize one another, Maureen soon discovers to her peril that Ann was running dope and money between London and Glasgow for a violent criminal. All the characters are richly drawn, though especially brilliant are Mina's depictions of the forlorn JimmyDunemployed, hapless, lovingly caring for his four "weans"Dand of the ambivalent Maureen, aggressive and needy, independent yet desirous of affection, confident of the future but unable to purge the demons of her past. This is the second in a planned trilogy by a writer of stunning talent and accomplishment. (Mar. 1) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Mina follows up 1999's Garnethill with another novel that is just as gritty. Set in Glasgow, it features Maureen O'Donnell, who labors under enough impediments to fuel two soap opera seasons: alcoholism, parental abuse, trouble finding Mr. Right, and not even a wee dram of fashion sense. Then she stumbles into the matter of finding out what happened to Ann Harris. Ann, a resident of the battered women's shelter where Maureen has been working, has disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Has she been killed in London? Did she add drugs to her alcohol problems? Maureen and Leslie, a friendly administrator from the shelter, join forces to find out. Suspicion falls on Ann's boyfriend, the much put-upon Jimmy, who is forever caring for the four weans Ann has left behind. Jimmy falls almost too easily into the role of prime suspect until Maureen and Leslie start rooting around in the less savory parts of Glasgow and London to uncover the truth. A good suggestion for anyone who appreciates their mysteries dark, while the female bonding should appeal especially to fans of the Val McDermid mysteries. Bob Lunn, Kansas City P.L., MO (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
As her brother Liam tells her, its worse than unbelievable; its statistically implausible that Maureen ODonnell would know two people who got killed within six months. Actually, Maureen knows a lot more unlikely people than Ann Harris, the battered wife Maureens womens-shelter friend Leslie Findlay found quarters for all too shortly before Ann vanished, only to reappear sewn up in a mattress tossed into the Thames. Theres Liam himself, a retired drug dealer, and Maureens abusive father, now suddenly and suspiciously restored to the bosom of his family. Theres the hopelessly alcoholic mother who starts off her daughters adventures with yet another battle over whether Michael ODonnell really did molest his daughter. Theres the killer Maureen helped nail in her searing debut, Garnethill (1999), still threatening her from the mental hospital hes trying to get released from. And, when Maureenstung with pity for Anns downtrodden, improbably accused husband Jimmy and the four children wholl be left homeless if hes convicted of her murdertravels to London to retrace Anns final days, she finds herself up to her armpits in lowlifes, as unsavory barmen, shopgirls, informants, drug couriers, and high-level dealers rush to make her acquaintance. The results are as hallucinatory and nearly as claustrophobic (the worms-eye view of London making it look as sorry as Glasgow) as in Maureens first outing, but now focused less sharply by a narration less tightly tied to Maureens scabrously comical point of view and a story that, however harrowing, isnt her own. Dozens of memorable scenes and attendant monsters, but yoked this time to a tangled, forgettable plot.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
