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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN num: 9780316016803
ISBN number: 0316016802
Label: Back Bay Books
Manufacturer: Back Bay Books
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 448
Printing Date: October 10, 2007
Publishing house: Back Bay Books
Sale Popularity Level: 161857
Studio: Back Bay Books
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'Stunning. . . . The danger reaches a frightening pitch.'--Rocky Mountain News
'Mina offers us a complex plot with a shocking ending, all told in an amazingly original voice.' -Cleveland Plain Dealer
'This is a terrific book.' -Dallas Morning News
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
Trying to escape her own troubled past and the memories of her lover's murder, Maureen O'Donnell finds refuge working as a counselour at a shelter for battered women. When the body of shelter resident Ann Harris washes up on the banks of the ThamesRiver two weeks later, Maureen vows to discover what happened and to prove that Ann's husband is not to blame. Taking her search to London, Maureen soon encounters disturbing truths about Ann's hidden past - including a secret that has Maureen fighting for her life.
'Atmospheric, intense, and full of the disturbing flavor of inner-city lowlife.' -Guardian
'Reads like a slap in the face - and a kick in the ribs and a fist in the stomach . . . like its powerful predecessor, Garnethill.' -New York Times Book Review
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Rated by buyers 
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"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.
Rated by buyers -
Denise Mina has become one of my absolute favorite writers. I have now read every book she has written. Once you read one, you're compelled to start at the beginning.
Rated by buyers 
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It's surprising that Denise Mina is not better known in this country. Her current series, culminating in SLIP OF THE KNIFE recently released, is receiving a lot of attention, but her very first series starting with GARNET HILL, is just as compelling and well plotted. Her description of the main character's dysfunctional family is not as clear cut as in the very first volume, but is present nonetheless. This is the middle volume of the series, and has a plot line and resolution that the reader will not see coming. Highly recommended.
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