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Denise Mina is the author of the acclaimed Garnethill Trilogy. The first book in the series Garnethill won the CWA John Creasey Dagger for the best first crime novel. She is also the author of the Paddy Meehan series which features journalist Paddy Meehan and covers her journalistic life from the newsrooms of the early 1980s through the important events of the nineteen nineties.
The second book in the series, The Dead Hour, was nominated for the Macavity Award© and the Edgar Award© for Best Novel.
Ayo: Let’s start by talking about the new book – Still Midnight. Is this the start of a brand new series or a stand-alone like Sanctum? If it is to be a series how many do you have in mind?
Denise: Well, I thought it was a standalone but actually I want to do a series of them because the central character is so absent from the story so it could well be a series of standalones with occasional appearances from Morrow. It’s very much iin keeping with her character that she is absent a lot of the time.
Ayo: What inspired you to write Still Midnight?
Denise: A case that happened in Glasgow of a family being held up and the daddy being taken hostage. It was so odd and unlikely and intriguing because they were a really ordinary, good-living family and this awful violence was suddenly visited upon them. Also I was interested in all the parallels between my own family background, Irish immigrants, and the experience of British Muslims now. We grew up very distrustful of the government and newspapers, knew we could be arrested for being Irish, framed for crimes and tortured by the government, all because of the activities of a tiny minority of terrorists. Some of us became very religious, some went back to live in an Ireland they didn’t know or like. I find it amazing that a whole new generation are going through the same process of alienation.
Ayo: There are a lot of different characters in Still Midnight. We have Alex Morrow a troubled and bitchy officer who has her own skeletons in the cupboard to deal with: a Ugandan-Asian troubled father; a peace-loving and morally tanding junkie; and an ambitious and devious police officer who is insidious as he is dangerous. Where did these characters come from?
Denise: Alex, the outsider in an authoritarian, rigid profession, was the starting point and the others followed her into the building.
Ayo: How pleased are you with the result of Still Midnight?
Denise: I never feel I’ve finished anything. I just get things taken away from me. I think to be able to write I have to be critical of my own work and that becomes a train I can’t get off. Like humans, books are only flawless at the moment of conception.
Ayo: Still Midnight starts with a rather brutal and mysterious kidnapping of an innocent man. How important for you is it to ensure that you get the beginning of your novels right?
Denise: Essential. The inciting incident is the spine of the book for me and the rest of the book is a process of unpacking it.
Ayo: All your previous novels, as this one, take place in Glasgow where you have painted a dark and gritty picture of Glasgow so vibrantly that it feels as if it's a character in itself, but it also seems to be infused with a love-hate type of vibe, so which is the case?
Denise: It’s all love, to be honest. Even the down and dirty bits. Having moved so much as a child the fact of belonging any where feels like a privilege to me and I love coming to know the city and watching it change. I lived in the same bedsit for thirteen years and watched a plastic bag degrade in the tree outside my window and found it beautiful.
Ayo: Have you been tempted to write about somewhere else apart from Glasgow and if so where would it be?
Denise: I have written stories set in the Highlands and others that could have been anywhere (Sanctum) but all cities are universal. Choosing one just makes it easier to imagine the physical geography of a story.
Ayo: Your books always deal with such harrowing issues. The Garnethill Trilogy looked dispassionately at alcoholism, incest, mental illness and many forms of abuse. Whilst The Field of Blood, which is the first in the Paddy Meehan series, had a harrowing account of the murder of a child by older children and The Last Breath explores the themes of family, friendship and justice. How do you feel about exposing readers to the seamier side of life?
Denise: I never think I am exposing anyone to anything. I’d write about people battering each other to death with their Land Rover keys but I don’t really know anything about that.
Ayo: You have taken on a number of other projects aside from writing your novels. You have written two plays and have had them both performed; you have also been the first female writer to do twelve instalments of comic book series Hellblazer. How did these projects come about especially the Hellblazer series?
Denise: Vertigo wrote to my brand new web site and asked if I’d be interested in writing Hellblazer. I almost bit their hand off. People often write to me and ask if I’d like to do odd things, which is thrilling. The plays both began as part of an experimental lunchtime theatre programme we have here called ‘a play a pie and a pint’ at a pub called OranMor. They let you put on anything, however abstract, because it only runs for a week. The last one was an epic poem about nationalism called ‘A drunk woman looks at the thistle’ and transferred to Edinburgh. I also wrote a Christmas Carol for them last year for a secular service on Christmas Eve and Wilma Patterson wrote the music. It was a monologue by a woman in labour.
Ayo: Did anything in particular inspire Empathy is the Enemy and The Red Right Hand, the Hellblazer comic that you wrote?
Denise: I studied art history at university, as an extra subject when I was doing law, and loved Kandinsky’s idea that colour and shapes were a universal language. Many architects believe this too, I think Frank Lloyd Wright believed that at one point. I wondered about language as an engine and the story came together. Also I’m always meeting people in trouble and trying, ineffectually, to save them so empathy is often my enemy.
Ayo: How difficult did you find making the transition from novels to comics? What do you think the fundamental differences are in plotting and scripting a novel versus a comic book?
Denise: They are completely different. A comic has to work in twenty-two page arcs and then in 6x22 for the paperback. Also you have to not say a huge amount and trust the artist to communicate that for you through your panel descriptions. It’s really a unique form of story telling. You also have to make sure the reader is getting enough from the script and the image to tie the two together. An unsuccessful comic is one where the reader’s eye is drawn to only the image or the script.
Ayo: You have also written a graphic novel A Sickness in the Family. When is this due to be published and was this as a result of doing Hellblazer?
Denise: It was indeed. I thought it was out this year but it’s finished and it’s out next year. The graphics are amazing.
Ayo: Including Still Midnight you have written eight novels now – does the writing get any easier?
Denise: Yes. Those dark moments of the soul when I think I can’t make it work get a bit shorter.
Ayo: Despite what happens to your female characters in your books they are still strong women characters. Do you specifically aim to do this?
Denise: I come from a very matriarchal family and I don’t know women who aren’t like that. Even the ones who manage to appear passive finally out themselves through drink or attacks of temper.
Ayo: Where do you generally get your ideas from?
Denise: Everywhere. Newspapers, listening to people. Learning to listen and ask questions is a great skill for a writer. The most dull-looking person may have an amazing story to tell and they will tell you if you ask kindly. It’s amazing.
Ayo: I believe that the Paddy Meehan series is supposed to be five books. When will we next get to see Paddy?
Denise: Probably in a couple of years. There’s another Alex Morrow book to come which I’m working on now.
Ayo: This year you were International Guest of Honour at Bloody Words in Ottawa, Canada. What was it like being International Guest of Honour and did you enjoy the conference?
Denise: It was brilliant. Canadian crime writers are so welcoming and fun, I haven’t had that much of a laugh in years. We did a liars panel, where four of us had to tell stories and the audience had to shout liar if they thought it was one. Whoever was wrong had to donate two dollars to an adult literacy fund. Next year I’m the International Guest of Honour at Bouchercon in San Francisco and can’t wait for it.
Ayo: What are you working on at the moment?
Denise: A short story, a film, a TV treatment about risk, and the next Alex Morrow book. Plus an avalanche of admin.
Ayo: Is there anything you would like to do that you have not found time to do?
Denise: Clean the bathroom.
Thanks very much, Denise!
More information about Denise and her books can be found on her website at :