Resolution - Denise Mina

I don't generally read thrillers/suspense/mysteries.

Except when I do, heh.

In the last year and a half or so, I've plugged into various series: first, Meg Gardiner's Evan Delaney set (I believe there are currently five, and she's not done)--championed by Stephen King in his column in Entertainment Weekly, because although she is an American now living in England, she was unpublished here. I ordered them from a great bookstore in Houston, Murder By The Book, the only place who was then selling them in the States. Anyway, they're smart, funny, violent and proceed at a breathtaking pace.* I read them all in about 8 days and wound up literally a bit woozy from the experience. (yes, certain writing friends sneered at my interest, and I say, well, to be direct, screw them--get over yourself!) Gardiner has since started another series, with Jo Beckett, and I liked that one as well (The Dirty Secrets Club)--they're all available now, and it's probably best to read Evan Delaney in order.

A neighbor told me about Maisie Dobbs, by Jaqueline Winspear. Either the fifth or sixth in this series comes out next month. I can't really explain why I like these books so much, because they are a little prim and proper for my taste, and there was a bit too convenient development in the last one, and yet I found myself crying at the end (and I'm fairly heartless, generally speaking). Anyway, Maisie starts off as a "psychological investigator" in the late '20's, in London, with a fairly unbelievable backstory, but I helplessly love them. She is sent into service at 13 (under-parlormaid, or something) but is caught reading books from the family's library in the middle of the night. The lady of the house sends her to school, which is interrupted by World War I--Maisie becomes a battlefield nurse and falls in love with a doctor way above her class, but by the time she launches her business, she is alone, reserved and uses meditation and other Eastern practices to discover the truth in her cases. The books progress slowly in time, but by the last one, there were foreshadowings of Fascism and the approaching second world war. I do wish Maisie will be allowed some fun soon. Like, to be perfectly blunt, maybe getting laid, as it's somewhat unclear how virginal she is.

A book called In The Woods, by Tana French, remained on the edge of my consciousness for many months--I think Amazon kept recommending it, but I persistently avoided it, honestly for a very odd reason: I had it linked in my mind to the Stephen Sondheim musical, Into the Woods. Yeah, made no sense at all. I finally broke down after the online book group gave the sequel high marks.

In The Woods is great: moody, evocative (some of the best scenes of friendship I've ever read) and while dark, certainly satisfying. The narrator is a cop who as a young boy went out to play with two friends, a boy and a girl. He is found tied to a tree, blood in his shoes, with amnesia, his friends never to be found. Twenty years later, he's a cop with the disturbingly similar case of a murdered 12-year-old girl on his hands. Only his partner and a couple of other people know his history, and he makes many mistakes, but is wholly human and touchingly vulnerable. Some may find the ending not neat enough, but it didn't bother me. The sequel is about his partner, Cassie, but French has said she is not quite done with Rob, so that's a good promise for the future.

Anyway, through In The Woods, which takes place in Dublin, I found out about Denise Mina. She's written 8 or 9 books by now--the first three are a trilogy set in Glasgow: Garnethill, Exile and Resolution. I read the first two in quick succession last spring, then found myself needing to take a break. Maureen O'Donnell, the crime-solver, is, to put it simply: a mess. From a highly dysfunctional family, an alcoholic mother, an abusive, absent father, sisters in denial of it all, and a lovely brother who just happens to be a drug dealer. In the first chapter Maureen goes out drinking with a friend to memorialize her breakup with a (married) psychologist she met while in treatment for recovered memories of sexual abuse. Waking horribly hungover (not an uncommon state for her as the books progress) Maureen finds her erstwhile lover dead in her living room, his neck slit.

I know, it all sounds pretty grim. And it is. But also at times hilarious and wise, and gritty and complex. Although Maureen does discover the murderer by the end of the first book, she has many trials to follow.

My friend Melissa picked these up on my recommendation, and she read Resolution ahead of me. I asked, "Well, was it good, or are you happy to be done with Maureen?" "Both," she said, with a sigh, and I have to agree. I'm not sorry to let this one go, but I enjoyed the ride. There is one event at the end of Resolution which kind of disappointed me (I didn't find it quite earned) but that is a minor quibble. Also, the first two books take place during the winter, and it's difficult to think of a more depressing place than Glasgow in the cold.

Until the heat wave in Resolution.

Enjoy--Maureen's trip to London on the night bus in Exile is unforgettable.


*Evan is a legal investigator (in theory, she does research, essentially) with a lovely boyfriend, a lawyer, who was paralyzed in a suspicious car crash some 18 months or so before the series opens. He, her family, her history as an Air Force brat, and her job all come into play as things go bad and get worse.