Gods and Beasts - Hardcover

Denise Mina

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1409140687 ISBN 13: 9781409140689

Publisher: Orion, 2012

Synopsis

A Glasgow post office one week before Christmas. Martin Pavel cowers on the floor, his eyes locked on those of a terrified child. Above them a masked gunman wields an AK47 while the boy's grandfather calmly volunteers to help the robber gather the money. Then the old man stands passively, hands by his sides, while the gunman raises the barrel and shoots him to shreds. Recently returned to work after the birth of her twins, DS Alex Morrow is called in to head the investigation. Why did the grandfather offer his help? Was it a moment of madness, a noble act of self-sacrifice, or did the old man and his killer share a dark past? Morrow's enquiries lead her to the door of Kenny Gallagher, a politician fighting for his political life - and his marriage - after he's publicly accused of having an affair with a young employee. And unknown to Morrow a temptation too great to resist leads two of her colleagues, DCs Leonard and Wilder, to make a rash decision and leaves them at the mercy of a ruthless blackmailer. The complicity of an old man in his own death, a promiscuous politician and a bag of untraceable money - one city, three crimes and a powerful connection that runs from Glasgow's dark criminal underworld to the international spheres of the super rich.

About this title

About the Author:

Denise Mina is a critically acclaimed Glaswegian crime writer. Her novels includeThe End of the Wasp Season and Gods and Beasts, both of which won the prestigious Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year Award in consecutive years. Denise also writes short stories and in 2006 wrote her first play. She is a regular contributor to TV and radio. Find out more at www.denisemina.co.uk or follow her on Twitter @DameDeniseMina

Review:

"Ostensibly a police procedural, GODS AND BEASTS has much more to it...What the elaborate and cleverly crafted plot concerns, as Morrow identifies, is not simply detection but 'being decent'. An excellent novel." -- Jessica Mann * LITERARY REVIEW * "Denise Mina is riding high at the moment, having won the prestigious Crime Novel of the Year award for her last book, THE END OF THE WASP SEASON. It was well deserved because that novel, Mina's ninth and the second to feature Detective Superintendent Alex Morrow, was an expert psychological deconstruction of the credit crunch, as well as a page-turning police procedural to boot. If anything, GODS AND BEASTS is even better... One of the best things about her crime novels is her natural tendency to duck out of the way of the genre's cliches...real characters struggling with their jobs, their families and their lives, the same as anyone else... GODS AND BEASTS confirms Mina's place at the front of the crime-writing pack." -- Doug Johnstone * INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY * "GODS AND BEASTS is vintage Mina: a complex three-ply plot involving a shooting, blackmail and corruption, all described with hard-hitting prose and psychological acuity." -- Julia Handford * SUNDAY TELEGRAPH * For aficionados of the genre there is a great deal to admire, not just in the elegance of the plotting... Mina's writing is lithe and spare, but alert... Readers inclined to be sniffy about genre fiction would do well to read Mina. As the parallel series progress they become more than the some of the individual novels, and metamorphose into a kind of 21st century Comedie Humaine - a excoriating look at the way that we live, and die, now. -- Stuart Kelly * SCOTSMAN * I am beginning to believe that Denise Mina is the finest contemporary exponent of British crime fiction, and that the Glasgow Detective Sergeant Alex Morrow is becoming its most interesting copper....Mina is terrific, too, at portraying the social and political backdrops that envelop her plots. -- Marcel Berlins * THE TIMES *

About this edition

• Publisher: Orion
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1409140687
• ISBN 13: 9781409140689
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304