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16th out of 175 books
—
33 voters
The Dead Hour (Paddy Meehan #2)
by
Denise Mina (Goodreads Author)
Paddy Meehan thought she'd be farther along in her career as an investigative journalist by now. But three years after breaking a big story, she's still on perpetual night shift, chasing police calls for a story that will promote her out of a twilight existence that makes candy bars and coffee a medical necessity. With her father and brothers unemployed and her family peri...more
Hardcover, 352 pages
Published
July 31st 2007
by Little, Brown and Company
(first published June 26th 2006)
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Very good and interesting criminal mystery novel with great characters set in Glasgow in the early eighties. Paddy Meehan is a young girl in her early twenties, almost a teenager, working at a newspaper, not a reporter yet. It seems she will be in next books. There's a BBC TV miniseries based in one of the novels from which I took the picture above. Some music references from the age: Madness, Echo And The Bunnymen and Lionel Ritchie. Its author wrote the comic-book Hellblazer for some 10 issues...more
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This is the second book in Denise Mina's Paddy Meehan trilogy. The first one is Field of Blood. It's not essential that the books be read in order but they ideally should be if for no other reason than to appreciate the maturation of wee Paddy who is only 23 years old in this book.
Like all of Mina's books, the story is set in Glasgow, Scotland. This series is set in the 1980's--specifically 1984 here-and in the heart of Thatcher-era economic malaise and resentment. Paddy is a crime reporter for...more
Like all of Mina's books, the story is set in Glasgow, Scotland. This series is set in the 1980's--specifically 1984 here-and in the heart of Thatcher-era economic malaise and resentment. Paddy is a crime reporter for...more
Not being an experienced mystery reader, I don't have many points of comparison for rating this book. The strength of the book was in the development of the main character: 21-year-old Paddy Meehan - a non-believing Catholic girl in Protestant Scotland, her reporter's ambitions on hold while she's stuck with the nightly "car calls" to supply the Daily News with petty crime reports. She's sassy, overweight, and decked out in pixie boots and a thrift-shop coat to shield her against the Glasgow col...more
An enjoyable mystery set in Scotland, with Paddy Meehan, young female journalist, as the main protagonist. Paddy is trying to work her way up the ladder of the "good-ol'-boys'" network of a local paper. In her early 20s and somewhat overweight, Paddy is the butt of many a newsroom joke. When she, herself, becomes an important witness to the murder of a prominent female attorney, however, Paddy sees the potential for writing a story that will gain her credibility in the eyes of her co-workers and...more
Paddy Meehan, 21 years old and on night shift [called the “calls car” shift, and encompassing the Dead Hour, 3 AM], at the Scottish Daily News in Glasgow, makes one of her usual nightly calls, following the police radio in the car and going to the address to which the police have been summoned. This time it appears to be a domestic disturbance, the victim a young, elegant-looking blond woman who, though obviously bloodied, refuses any assistance and, when Paddy catches her eye, seems to slightly...more
Excellent novel about an investigative reporter who is on the crime beat, night shift, for the local Glasgow paper. It is told primarily from her point of view. The other POV is that of a cocaine addict, and her inevitable decline.
Paddy is witness to an apparent case of physical abuse, but the victim declines to take advantage of the appearance of cops and Paddy to extricate her from the situation. The next day she is found dead. Later, she witnesses the removal of an apparent suicide from the r...more
Paddy is witness to an apparent case of physical abuse, but the victim declines to take advantage of the appearance of cops and Paddy to extricate her from the situation. The next day she is found dead. Later, she witnesses the removal of an apparent suicide from the r...more
Set in Glasgow in 1984, Mina's riveting second thriller to feature Patricia "Paddy" Meehan (after 2005's A Field of Blood) opens with the 21-year-old crime reporter for the Scottish Daily News following up a late-night disturbance complaint at a Victorian villa in the posh suburb of Bearsden. The tall, attractive man at the door assures Paddy, as he had the police, that the incident won't happen again. Behind him is a blond woman with a bloody face"Vhari Burnett, a well-respected political activ...more
I first heard about Denise Mina from a National Public Radio review while I was driving to work. Scotland has always been one of my favorite places -- even Mina's Glasgow, a gritty city that is the exact opposite of stately Edinburgh. Growing like a toadstool in the 19th century prosperity of its shipyards, it has become Britain's equivalent of Detroit once those shipyards shuttered their doors. Some years ago, I stayed at a pub called the Babbity Bowster within a few blocks of George's Square a...more
The Dead Hour, by Denise Mina. B-plus
Downloaded from audible.com
This is the second book in the new series, involving Paddy Meehan, who started out as a copy boy (girl) and then, based on the good work done in the first book, Field of Blood, she is promoted to reporter. In this book she is now on the crime beat and rides around following the police to calls at night writing up summaries of what happened for the next morning’s paper. So, she was with the police the night they were called for a dom...more
Downloaded from audible.com
This is the second book in the new series, involving Paddy Meehan, who started out as a copy boy (girl) and then, based on the good work done in the first book, Field of Blood, she is promoted to reporter. In this book she is now on the crime beat and rides around following the police to calls at night writing up summaries of what happened for the next morning’s paper. So, she was with the police the night they were called for a dom...more
A follow up to Field of Blood featuring a great character, Paddy Meehan, an aspiring journalist facing some tough odds--a woman trying to succeed in the male dominated field in the 1980s, the sole support of her family due to the declining economy, her losing battle with food and some bad choices in her relationships with men. As Mina writes her, she’s full of self doubt but can be amusingly tough when needed. Paddy witnesses what’s probably a crime during her graveyard shift, following police c...more
This is an unusual book, and an unusual murder mystery, lent to me by a copy-editing friend who used to live in the UK. It takes place in 1980s Glasgow, Scotland, and the sleuth is a 21-year-old night cop reporter for a Glasgow newspaper who lives at home with her parents and supports her unemployed family. The characterization of the decidedly unheroic Paddy Meehan is excellent and the descriptions of crumbling Glasgow and the seedy parts of that city during the reign of Margaret Thatcher are...more
I read the first book in this series 'The Field of Blood' which featured Paddy Meehan a young journalist on the crime beat – a character I really enjoyed for her realness, heart and insecurities and who I wanted to read more about.
In this story, aside from the crime story, I enjoyed the backdrop of the economic hard times in Scotland where Paddy lives with her family in cramped and impoverished conditions, a household in which she’s the only one working in her family and her mother makes soup to...more
In this story, aside from the crime story, I enjoyed the backdrop of the economic hard times in Scotland where Paddy lives with her family in cramped and impoverished conditions, a household in which she’s the only one working in her family and her mother makes soup to...more
Feb 05, 2009
Bookmarks Magazine
added it
Critics agree that Paddy Meehan may just be one of the most fascinating investigators in recent crime fiction__and that The Dead Hour is a gripping sequel to The Field of Blood. Purportedly about spousal abuse, the novel also features a secondary story about a woman on the run, ruminations on human nature and experience, and depictions of class and religious tensions during the Thatcher era. Paddy has evolved since the last novel; reviewers identified with her moral uncertainty and praised her h
...more
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Denise Mina is just an amazing writer, let alone crime writer. This story sucks you in from the beginning which is the probably the only time things are on an even keel. The story barrages you from all sides, constantly complicating itself and unsettling you. Mina has created a world where truly anything can happen up to the last sentence--literally. The integrity and complexity of the main character--indeed all of the characters--keep the whole thing together and keep you thoroughly on board. I...more
A Paddy Meehan mystery, four and a half stars, in which she is still working as reporter, now on the night shift, for the newspaper The Scottish Daily News, and gets a police call at a posh suburban home, a woman who has obviously been beaten, and not only do the police leave the woman and her 'companion' there without arresting anyone, Paddy leaves as well, only to find out later that the woman has been killed. From there she follows where the leads take her, trying to find out who the good loo...more
Not as good as the first by Denise Mina I read. The same protagonist, but not as well developed. The plot deals with the murders of two Glasgow men who are getting ready to publish a book of photographs taken throughout Scotland. They are both murdered and Paddy the Daily Mail journalist takes on the cases, at first to write a story and later trying to save her six year old son.
Paddy is a twenty-six year overweight blond who works as a journalist to support her family. Glasgow is undergoing an...more
Paddy is a twenty-six year overweight blond who works as a journalist to support her family. Glasgow is undergoing an...more
I am learning to love Paddy Meehan, the young scottish reporter, in this series. And the way Denise Mina writes about Scotland is wonderful - gritty, real. The story of a woman Paddy meets while on the night crime shift for a newsapers, who is later murdered is fascinating. Paddy just keeps working at figuring out what is going on and won't give up. We,as readers, know a bit more than she does, as the point of view shifts to another character. In the end, she figures it all out, and has a person...more
This book had great reviews but took me a while to get into. The prose is written as English is spoken in Scotland, so there is that to get used to. And the book is the second in a series, which might have explained a few things had I read the first one. But suddenly it was riveting. This is how it starts: Paddy Meehan is stuck on the night shift, trying to hang on to her job as a reporter. She catches a call at an elegant home, a domestic disturbance. The police seem to be accepting the explana...more
At first I wasn't sure that I liked this book, but it grew on me. It takes place in Scotland, with Paddy (Patricia) Meehan, a night shift reporter for a newspaper. There are several murders and Paddy gets involved on the periphery. She has a short affair with a married policeman and deals with her low income family. Inadvertently she takes a 50 pound note, which ends up being evidence in the murder case. The sister of the dead woman, Kate, is busy killing herself with cocaine. Rather hard boiled...more
Paddy Meehan is a tough, yet vulnerabe reporter. In this story, Paddy sees something that could ultimately cost her her life. She is overweight, supporting her unemployed family, Catholic, and working in what is commonly a man's field. Mina describes the city of Glasgow and its people with authenticity. This is a good crime novel and Heather O'Neill's scottish accent is well matched to the main character. Paddy is a character that grows on you. I will have to read the first book, Field of Blood....more
Gritty, hard boiled, brilliant. Denise Mina always pulls me in to the tough world of her characters and Scotland. Plots are captivating, the people are so richly drawn, fully dimensional. Like Ian Rankin, her books always uncovers the sordid underbelly of Scotland. It's drugs, racism, violence, unemployment, and alcoholism. Yet we glimpse it's beauty, brilliance and warmth of the people.
Being a Scot myself, I am partial to Mina's work, but you don't have to be Scottish to love a gripping myster...more
Being a Scot myself, I am partial to Mina's work, but you don't have to be Scottish to love a gripping myster...more
This starts out a tad slow, but that fits perfectly with the heroine. It gets better and better also in line with her development. The sense of detail is good, with a near miss or 2, but not outside the genre or the characterization, and very close to the setting, the little I know of Glasgow (from others). A decent contrast to the Edinburgh mysteries, I'd say, a bit like comparing The Wire with CSI wherever. Definitely better and classier, despite the lower milieu.
This is the second book in the Paddy Meehan series. I just discovered this author - quite by accident. I will definitely look for a third. Paddy is a young woman who works the graveyard shift, monitoring police calls for a newspaper. On the job, she gets inadvertently gets involved in a murder. The main character is very different and interesting. The setting in Scotland and Ireland is different as well. A good read.
So far I haven't read a Denise Mina book I didn't like. This one goes farther back with Paddy Meehan than I'd been before, but Paddy remains very much herself. The reality of the downtrodden Scotland she lives in comes through, as does the strange Catholic/Protestant tensions. Her stories are consistently good and readable. I wouldn't be surprised if I worked my way through everything she's written one of these days.
The second book featuring Paddy Meehan, a young investigative journalist in 1980s Glasgow. This looks like being a series where the ongoing relationships outside the main story are worth coming back for; I'm interested to find out what happens to Paddy's family, especially her mother and her ex-fiancee Sean, over the years. Probably more interested than I am in the individual mystery actually.
wow - i don't think any other book has me taken to crimescenes the way Denise Mira has. All pretty dark and gruesome but it sounds very very real! She has the gift of bringing her characters to life and to make them so real with all the little details and descriptions. here are heroes you don't want to be but you'll find a little bit of you in them.
The second book of a trilogy, The Dead Hour leaves one hanging at the end and the need to find the third book. Although the mystery is resolved, Paddy's character is left open. The mystery was a good story with interesting characters that builds to a suspenseful climax.
I guess I'll have to read the next one but I'll take little break for now.
I guess I'll have to read the next one but I'll take little break for now.
Some of the best crime fiction I've read in a while! The writing is gorgeous, plot tight and quick moving, and the heroine (!) pure Glaswegian working-class brilliance. She's a hell of a woman, but with a depth of character that's golden, and there sure as hell aren't enough of those anywhere in literature, much less on the noir side of life.
Wicked unimpressed by this one, mainly because Paddy irritated me the whole time, so spending 300+ pages wanting to slap her silly was a hard slog. I did really like Kate's pov, and the solution to the mystery. The resolution on the other hand, felt abrupt and unfinished. What did Paddy do with what she knew? Or did she just sit in the toilets and have a cry?
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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
She left school at sixteen and did a number of poorly paid jobs, including working in a meat factory, as a bar maid, kitchen porter and cook.
Eventually she settled in auxiliary nursing for geriatric and terminal care patients.
At twenty one sh...more
More about Denise Mina...
She left school at sixteen and did a number of poorly paid jobs, including working in a meat factory, as a bar maid, kitchen porter and cook.
Eventually she settled in auxiliary nursing for geriatric and terminal care patients.
At twenty one sh...more
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