Somehow I have missed several entries in the life of Paddy Meehan. When I first encountered her she was on her first assignment as a greenhorn reporter. But in this book we pick up the story in Glasgow in 1990 when Paddy now has her own newspaper column, and a young child called Pete. She is living with a male friend with whom she has a lovely easy relationship. She has a reasonable relationship with Pete’s father comedian George Burns, and life is OK.
When she learns of the death of journalist Terry Patterson she is overcome with grief – Terry had always been the journalist she aspired to be, and there are many flashbacks as Paddy recalls memories of their time together. Needing to know how he died she contacts his friend Kevin and learns of the book they have been doing together, a book about Scottish people who have moved to New York, as Kevin says they were amazed that they got a book deal as they had looked upon it as a good excuse for a jaunt to New York. But Terry has been killed by a shot to the head – an execution, just who had he offended.
A further complication in her life is the release of child Killer Callum Ogilvie. Everyone wants to interview him the sum of £50’000 being banded about, but his cousin Shaun wants Paddy to interview him and Paddy is reluctant to do so.
Paddy is surprised to find that Terry has left her everything in his will including all his notebooks. She trawls through his papers trying to find what he was going to expose that was worth his life. As she digs to discover his killer she puts not just herself but her son Pete in mortal danger.
This is an excellent book and I applaud Denise Mina for the power of the prose, the turn of phrase that had me both laughing and crying, but I also applaud Katy Anderson for her incredible reading – well reading is only half the story, dramatisation would be closer to the mark. She had the characters jumping out in front of me. Her Scottish accents were terrific but her switch to a Belfast accent left me speechless. She is nothing short of amazing. I loved her reading and I will be looking out for her in the future. Wonderful.
The climax is powerful and although I may have missed earlier books in the series I will certainly not miss the next one. I can’t wait.
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Lizzie Hayes