Denise Mina

Background

Denise Mina was born in Glasgow in 1966. Because of her father's job as an engineer, the family followed the north sea oil boom of the seventies around Europe, moving twenty-one times in eighteen years from Paris to the Hague, London, Scotland, and Bergen.

Education

Denise left school at sixteen and did a number of poorly paid jobs. At twenty one she passed exams, got into study Law at Glasgow University and went on to research a PhD thesis at Strathclyde University on the ascription of mental illness to female offenders.

Career

After school, Denise worked in a variety of low-skilled jobs, including as a barmaid, 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 patient.

It was while researching a Ph.D. thesis and teaching criminology and criminal law at Strathclyde University in the 1990s, that Mina decided to write her first novel Garnethill, which was published in 1998 by Transworld. Garnethill won the Crime Writers' Association John Creasy Dagger for the best first crime novel and was the start of a trilogy completed by Exile and Resolution. Since then she has published twelve novels. Mina's novel, The Field of Blood, was filmed by the BBC for broadcast in 2011, and The Dead Hour was filmed and broadcast in 2013.

In 2006 she wrote her first play, Ida Tamson, an adaptation of a short story which was serialized in the Evening Times over five nights. The play was part of the A Play, a Pie and a Pint series, starred Elaine C. Smith.

Described as an author of Tartan Noir, Mina has also dabbled in comic book writing, having written 13 issues of Hellblazer, the John Constantine series for Vertigo. She has also written a one-off graphic novel about spree killing and property prices called A Sickness in the Family.

Denise presents TV and radio programmes as well as regularly appears in the media and has made a film about her own family. She regularly appears at literary festivals in the United Kingdom and abroad, leads masterclasses on writing and was a judge for the Bailey’s Prize for Women’s Fiction 2014.

Achievements

• Denise Mina is a prolific crime writer. Her best known work is The Long Drop, which received the Gordon Burn Prize and McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year in 2017. In 2014 she was inducted into the Crime Writers’ Association Hall of Fame.

Works

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  • Exile

    (When one of her clients at the local Glasgow women's shel...)

    2000
  • Field of Blood

    (Set in Glasgow in 1981, a time of hunger strikes, riots a...)

    2005
  • Conviction

    (The captivating, utterly unforgettable new thriller for f...)

    2019
  • Resolution

    (Irresistibly blending suspense, mystery, compassion, raw ...)

    2001
  • Slip of the Knife

    (A brilliant new thriller featuring Paddy Meehan, one of t...)

    2008
  • The Dead Hour

    (The most praised thriller writer to burst onto the scene ...)

    2006
  • The Long Drop

    (William Watt's wife, daughter, and sister-in-law are dead...)

    2017
  • The Red Road

    (Alex Morrow faces her toughest opponents yet in this bril...)

    2013
  • Still Midnight

    (Alex Morrow is not new to the police force-or to crime-bu...)

    2009
  • Gods and Beasts: A Novel

    (It's the week before Christmas when a lone robber bursts ...)

    2012
  • John Constantine, Hellblazer

    (The human race is a vast herd - one that John Constantine...)

    2007
  • The End of the Wasp Season

    (When a notorious millionaire banker hangs himself, his de...)

    2010
  • Blood, Salt, Water

    (Alex Morrow investigates the dark underbelly of a seeming...)

    2014
  • The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

    (Book One in the graphic novel adaption of The Girl with t...)

    2012
  • Garnethill

    (You don't go to Garnethill for the amenities. You only go...)

    1998
  • A Sickness in the Family

    (Meet the Ushers. The parents, Ted and Biddy. Grandma Mart...)

    2010

References

• Denise Mina