Customer Reviews

Exile

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The second in Glasgow author Denise Mina's projected trilogy ("Garnethill" won the John Creasey Award), "Exile" again features the driven, hard-drinking, damaged Maureen O'Donnell and the grimmer, grimier precincts of Glasgow.

The story concerns the murder of Ann Harris, a battered alcoholic who briefly resided at the women's shelter where Maureen reluctantly works. Agreeing to help her best friend, Maureen looks in on Harris' harassed husband, one of life's ..., who is, however, touchingly devoted to his four "weans." When Harris' body turns up in London, Jimmy goes to the top of the suspects list.

Partly to escape her own haunting problems - her sexually abusive father has returned to Glasgow and his proximity fills her with dread - Maureen goes to London when Ann's body surfaces there. She traces Ann's movements among the drug and alcohol addicted, and the violent traffickers in human weakness. The suspense builds as Maureen slowly gathers the pieces of Ann's messy life, crossing paths and swords with prey and predator.

The story is absorbing, gritty and well organized, the pace wonderfully irregular. But the heart of this novel is Mina's writing, her visceral evocations of people and place. Maureen is a complex knot of longings, intellect, fearlessness and terror. Nothing is simple.

Maureen's reaction to clueless, ... Jimmy: "He tried to smile at her, sliding his lips back, but his face was too tired to pull it off. He had threateningly sharp teeth, which slanted backwards into his mouth. They looked like a vicious little carnivore's, naturally selected because they slid deeper into the flesh when the victim resisted."

And this is the man she decides to champion. Maureen is no trusting soul. But she does yearn. After a fight with her boyfriend: "She wanted a nice boyfriend, she wanted kindness and respect and decency. She didn't want to spend her life with people she was suited to, she wanted to be with people like him."

Mina's prose is muscled, sometimes prickly and vulnerable, sometimes picturesquely hard-boiled: "The morning dragged by like a stranger's funeral." And always painterly: "The wind took on a shrill new viguor at the bus station, hurtling down the low streets, converging in the waiting area in front of the ticket building."

Though Mina's depiction of Glasgow is raw and dark, her heroine's rough edges protect a core of strength and her youthful vitality pumps out glimmers of hope. Denise Mina is a rare find.

Denise Mina has embarked upon a series, featuring her most unlikely heroine, sexually abused and haunted by the experience, Maureen O'Donnell. Mina gets high marks for her depiction of a young woman battling her mental store of horrors; angry, confrontational and daring, Maureen hurls herself into everything: love, family relationships, encounters with strangers, even danger. Her recklessness is emblematic of those troubled by and driven by abusive pasts. And Mina is right on the money when it comes to detailing her endless doubts--about her friendships, her family, herself--and her forays into situations anyone less driven wouldn't approach for any amount of love or money.

Embarking with her best friend, Leslie (who is a rough-hewn gem in her own right, just as Maureen is in hers) on tracking down the missing battered-wife Ann Harris, the embattled friends travel over exceedingly rocky terrain. Some of Maureen's actions might defy credibility were it not for the solidly established foundation of her angry determination to right injustices and unfairness where she finds them.

When the search evolves into investigating the murder of Ann Harris, Maureen puts herself in the way of danger with fear that comes as an afterthought. This young woman is a fascinating study of contradictions: she is bold and brash, good-hearted, humorous and unstoppable. And in spite of the enormous potential for personal harm, Maureen prevails and unearths the truth.

Mina has great skill at characterization; it is her primary asset, along with her ability to give the reader a powerful sense of Glasgow--its often mean streets, its weather, its population, its often unexpected gallows humor.

This is a fine book, on the way to becoming a fine series. It's anything but light reading, but completely compelling.

"Exile,"second book in Denise Mina's acclaimed "Garnethill" trilogy, followed upon the earlier book's award-winning heels, for Garnethill; upon its publication in 1998, won the John Creasy Memorial Award for Best First Crime Novel. Mina was born in 1966 in East Kilbride, Lanarkshire, a suburban district near Glasgow; as her father was an oil engineer, she was moved, internationally, 21 times in childhood. She dropped out of school at sixteen, got a job: she worked in meat packing plants, as a waitress/bartender, all over the place, before returning to school, becoming a lawyer, and collecting some other post-graduate degrees, as well. So she was able to teach at university for several years before she was able to become a full-time writer. She's still a relatively young writer, with a relatively short career, and she writes the toughest Scottish-style tartan noir as her birthright. Tartan noir? As exemplified by Ian Rankin, its dean, and best-selling mystery author in the United Kingdom, it's blacker than average, more bloody-minded and violent, as many people consider the Scots to be, but still leavened by that sly Scottish humor.

"Exile" is set in some of the hardest neighborhoods of Glasgow, among some of its hardest people - and Glasgow was long known, internationally, as site of some of the hardest slums in the developed world -- "the Gorbals." It revisits the disorderly life of Maureen O'Donnell, thrown further off by the return of her abusive father, Michael, to the city. As if that weren't enough, she is being stalked by mail by former psychologist Angus Farrell, who is facing trial for the gruesome murder, in Maureen's flat, of her lover Douglas Brady, also a psychologist. Both men formerly employed in the asylum where Maureen had been sent while in crisis over the reawakening memories of the abusive father, Michael: they really shouldn't have been messing with her, or any other of their patients. However, Maureen is now working at the office of a Glasgow woman's shelter when in comes Ann Harris, severely beaten, with two broken ribs, stinking of alcohol. Two weeks later, Harris is found, abused/ beaten to death in a mattress in the Thames River, in London. Suspicion is bound to fall on her hapless husband Jimmie, struggling with no money and their four kids. He's cousin to Maureen's best friend Leslie, and the friends think he didn't do it. So Maureen takes off for London - if nothing else, it gets her out of her troubles for a while, to see what she can find. She's out of her depth in the mega city, but our Maureen is resolute.

The novel moves fast, and the writing is nothing short of scorching. Yes, there are a lot of scary characters, and a lot of violence, but in Mina's hands, it's almost poetry. She's unequaled at getting the ambiance of her native city, once famed for its shipbuilding, now on the post-industrial dust heap, on paper. It's all there, the black, dark cold Clyde River, once so important to shipbuilders, still the city's shivery spine (and, not so long ago, as a person long fascinated by the city, I spent a freezing July week in a hotel on the Clyde's banks). The fearsome climate. Even, quite likely partially as the result of that climate, the typical destructive Scottish lifestyle, also pointed out by Rankin - too much to drink, too much to smoke, too many sweets, and an early death rate unrivaled in the western world. Library Journal said, "A good suggestion for anyone who appreciates their mysteries dark, while the female bonding should appeal especially to fans of the Val McDermid mysteries." I say this book reads as though burnt on the map of Glasgow.

Mystery fans have been eagerly awaiting the second novel by Denise Mina, whose groundbreaking "Garnethill" won the John Creasey Award for Best First Crime novel and made instant devotees of her so richly fleshed-characters, Mauri, Liam, Leslie and Winnie. In Garnethill we met Glaswegian (inhabitant of Glascow, Scotland) Maureen O'Donnell, a troubled young woman with a past so horrific and a family so dysfunctional, it is a wonder she survived at all. Mauri suffered incest at the hands of her own father and is tortured by flashbacks and nightmares of the event. Her alcoholic harpy of a mother, Winnie, refuses to believe her daughter's memory. Mauri's two sisters also refuse to believe. Only Mauri's brother, Liam, a drug-dealer is supportive. Luckily, Mauri has her best friend, Leslie, to help her get through the days as she struggles to cope and recover from a nervous breakdown caused by the memory of the incest. Large quantities of scotch whiskey also help dull the pain.

The second novel begins six months after the events described in "Garnethill". Mauri and Leslie are working together at a shelter for abused women, but their friendship seems to be fading. Mauri's long-lost father reportedly has returned to Glascow, leaving her no respite from the shadows of her past and she is relying more and more on whiskey to escape. When one of the shelter's clients turns up dead in London, Mauri throws herself into the search for the reasons for the woman's brutal death. The chase takes her through the underworld of drug lords and heroin junkies in seedy pubs and the grim poverty of the housing projects (or "schemes") in London and Glascow.

Maureen and her creator, Denise Mina, are firmly entrenched in the pantheon of great women crime writers and their sleuths, particularly carving a place in the "hard-boiled" genre, previously the province of male mystery authors only. Once you have met these characters, you never forget them and are eager to follow any exploit. However, I have to say that I thought "Exile" was less centered, less smooth, less mesmerizing than "Garnethill". For one thing, Mauri's Medea-like mother, Winnie, has only a few walk-ons - and I found her one of the most gripping characters. The motivation for Mauri's one-woman descent into the drug hell seemed somewhat contrived. Mauri herself swings from moods of wanting to have a normal life being happy and settled to more and more frequent heavy drinking bouts - these swings are certainly believeable within the context of her character, but make for a much less centered book. One never meets up with the elusive father who caused much of the problem, though his presence is used as a motive and a goad throughout the book. Still, these are minor quibbles. The writing is superb and one rarely reads an author that can so put the reader so three-dimensionally into the landscape and the lives her characters inhabit. If Garnethill had not been so overwhelmingly compelling, I'm sure "Exile" would still make me put Denise Mina on my notify-me-at-once-when-a-new-book-comes-out list and I await the next novel to find out which pathways Mauri takes.

It's surprising that Denise Mina is not better known in this country. Her current series, culminating in SLIP OF THE KNIFE recently released, is receiving a lot of attention, but her first series starting with GARNET HILL, is just as compelling and well plotted. Her description of the main character's dysfunctional family is not as clear cut as in the first volume, but is present nonetheless. This is the middle volume of the series, and has a plot line and resolution that the reader will not see coming. Highly recommended.

Maureen, the emotionally battered Glaswegian introduced in Garnethill, finds herself caught in a trap of depression and dispair, separated from nearly every important relationship in her life. One of the most important relationships she feels she losing is with her friend Lesley. So when Lesley asks her help in finding out what happened to a client of the shelter for abused women she agrees for the sake of Lesley and the client's husband, who appears to be a most unlikely batterer.

Many of the characters from Garnethill reappear including the sympathetic and unsympathetic officers of the law, Maureen's protective brother Liam, and Lynn his first girlfriend. New characters are introduced, notably Kilty Goldfarb, a disenchanted social worker and Vik, Maureen's new love interest.

The plot twists and turns between London and Glasgow, as Maureen tries to puzzle out exactly what happened to Ann Harris and why. Don't start this one late in the evening, it might keep you up most of the night!

I recommend for anybody to read GARNETHILL first before starting EXILE. In Denise Mina's latest novel she recaps the sequences of her previous novel and reveals who the killer was in that book. Some questions that I had from GARNETHILL were explained here.

In this latest work, Maureen is working for a woman's shelter and trying to gain control of her life. She investigates the death of Ann Harris, a former client from the Scottish center, who was found beaten to death in London. As in most mystery books, things are not quite what they seem and Maureen is way over her head.

I enjoyed this book, learning a bit about domestic abuse and women's shelters. Mina has a way with words while describing characters and locations. I only suggest to anyone who is unfamiliar with Mina's work to start with GARNETHILL before beginning EXILE. You will feel richer for it.

I was completely immersed in Garnethill when I read it. The book consumed me. I HAD to know what happened to the characters and couldn't put the book down. Exile is no different. Filled with searing sadness,courage and resolve, the character of Maureen stays in my thoughts and dreams. I feel I know her. I can't wait until the next book!

Denise Mina has become one of my absolute favorite writers. I have now read every book she has written. Once you read one, you're compelled to start at the beginning.

I wasn't as impressed with Garnethill as all the praise had led me to believe i would be. However, Exile excorcises any doubts i might have had about her talent...here, in Denise Mina, is a first class writer. This book is a better effort, and the prose is of very high quality. There is absolutely brilliant description, and the evocation of the seedier side of life, in Glasgow in particular, is utterly compelling. Maureen O'Donnell is a likeable character, but it is nice that this book doesnt feature so heavily on her character.

The plot is good...the writing is blunt and brutal, but certainly does not lack an edge of compassion. (Like fellow british writer Mo Hayder...) It's effective and moving in that bluntness.

There is a great twist at the end which you wont see coming, and you will be left with your mouth watering for the next book in the Garnethill trilogy.