Denise Mina

Denise Mina
Born	1966 (age 49–50) Glasgow, Scotland
Nationality	Scottish
Genre	Crime fiction
Website
www.denisemina.co.uk

Denise Mina (born 1966) is a Scottish crime writer and playwright. She has written the Garnethill trilogy and another three novels featuring the character Patricia "Paddy" Meehan, a Glasgow journalist. Described as an author of Tartan Noir, she has also dabbled in comic book writing, having recently written 13 issues of Hellblazer.^[1] Since 2006, she has had two plays performed with successful reception.

Mina's first Paddy Mehan novel, The Field of Blood, was filmed by the BBC for broadcast in 2011, and stars Jayd Johnson, Peter Capaldi and David Morrissey.^[2] The second, The Dead Hour was filmed and broadcast in 2013.^[3]

Biography

Denise Mina was born in Glasgow in 1966. Her father worked as an engineer. Because of his work, the family moved 21 times in 18 years: from Paris to The Hague, London, Scotland and Bergen. Mina left school at sixteen and worked in a variety of low-skilled jobs, including: bar maid, kitchen porter and cook. She also worked for a time in a meat processing factory. In her twenties she worked in auxiliary nursing for geriatric and terminal care patients before returning to education and earning a law degree from Glasgow University.^[4]

It was while researching a PhD thesis on the ascription of mental illness to female offenders, and teaching criminology and criminal law at Strathclyde University in the 1990s, that she decided to write her first novel Garnethill, published in 1998 by Transworld.

Mina lives in Glasgow.

Awards and honors

• 1998 John Creasy Dagger for Best First Crime Novel, Garnethill
• 2011 The Martin Beck Award (Bästa till svenska översatta kriminalroman), The End of the Wasp Season^[5]
• 2012 Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, The End of the Wasp Season^[6]

Bibliography

Denise Mina signing books at the Edinburgh International Book Festival

Novels

Garnethill trilogy

• Garnethill (1998)
• Exile (2000)
• Resolution (2001)

Patricia "Paddy" Meehan novels

• The Field of Blood (2005)
• The Dead Hour (2006)
• The Last Breath (2007) - published as Slip of the Knife in America

Alex Morrow novels

• Still Midnight (2009)
• The End of the Wasp Season (2010)
• Gods and Beasts (2012)
• The Red Road (2013)
• Blood, Salt, Water (2014)

Other novels

• Sanctum (2003) (published as Deception in the US in 2004)

Comics

• Hellblazer, # 216-228 (DC Comics, 2006–2007)
  • "Empathy is the Enemy" collected Hellblazer issues 216–222
  • "The Red Right Hand" collected Hellblazer issues 223–228

Plays

• Ida Tamson (2006)
• A Drunk Woman Looks at the Thistle (2007), inspired by Hugh MacDiarmid's long modernist poem, A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle, and first performed by Karen Dunbar.

Radio plays

• The Meek, BBC Radio 3, 7 March 2009

Comic collections and graphic novels

• Hellblazer
  • Hellblazer: Empathy Is the Enemy. Vertigo. 2006.
  • Hellblazer: The Red Right Hand. Vertigo. 2007.
• A Sickness in the Family. Vertigo Crime. Vertigo. 2010. ISBN 978-1401210816.
• Millenium
  • The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Millennium Trilogy. 1st. Vertigo. 2012. ISBN 978-1401235574.
  • The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Millennium Trilogy. 2nd. Vertigo. 2013. ISBN 978-1401235581.

Notes

1. Irvine, Alex (2008), "John Constantine Hellblazer", in Dougall, Alastair, The Vertigo Encyclopedia, New York: Dorling Kindersley, pp. 102–111, ISBN 0-7566-4122-5, OCLC 213309015
2. Ellis, Maureen (13 December 2010), "Face to Face: Denise Mina", The Herald, Glasgow, retrieved 2010-12-14
3. "Field of Blood: The Dead Hour, BBC One", The Arts Desk, 9 August 2013.
4. page 178, Great Women Mystery Writers, 2nd Ed. by Elizabeth Blakesley Lindsay, 2007, publ. Greenwood Press, ISBN 0-313-33428-5
5. Svenska Deckarakademin: Bästa översatta (In swedish, list of winners of best foreign crime novels translated into swedish, awarded by Swedish Crime Writers' Academy)
6. Alison Flood (20 July 2012). "Denise Mina wins crime novel of the year award". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 July 2012.

External links

• Official website
• Denise Mina at British Council: Literature
• Still Midnight review and interview in The Scotsman
• Denise Mina talking with Ian Rankin at the Edinburgh International Book Festival (transcript and audio), 17 August 2006
• End of the Wasp season review in ShotsMag Ezine