Resolution (Garnethill Series #3)

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

"Resolution can stand alone, battered and proud, as a class-conscious crime novel that dares to tell the ugly truth." -New York Times Book Review

Just as Maureen O'Donnell is struggling to give up drinking, she faces her most formidable challenges yet: testifying against her boyfriend's murderer and the return of her abusive father. Irresistibly blending suspense, compassion, raw instinct, and grim wit, Resolution provides a wrenching conclusion to Denise Mina's universally acclaimed Garnethill trilogy.

"For anyone who thinks Western civilization too comfortable or crime novels no more than entertainment, Denise Mina's Garnethill trilogy will come as a salutary surprise. It will also make them laugh and keep them reading. It is a great achievement." -Times Literary Supplement

"If you want a reason to try the crime genre, get yourself a novel by Denise Mina." -Rocky Mountain News

"Mina depicts a Scotland so hard that merely living there can cut you like a shard of glass." -Baltimore Sun

Blending suspense, compassion, raw instinct, and grim wit, Denise Mina’s Resolution completes her compelling Garnethill trilogy (which includes two New York Times Book Review Notable Books of the Year) that Val McDermid, author of A Place of Execution, calls “head and shoulders above much of contemporary crime fiction.” In her gripping new crime novel, Mina returns once more to the seamier precincts of Glasgow and the untidy world of the hapless but resolute Maureen O’Donnell. Maureen’s abusive father has shown up again in Glasgow; and Angus Farrell, the psychologist who so gruesomely murdered her therapist-boyfriend, is going on trial—with Maureen as the star witness. Meanwhile, she’s embroiled in another hard-bitten family’s feud when Ella McGee, an elderly stallholder at the flea market where Maureen sells illegally imported cigarettes, decides to take her son to small-claims court over unpaid wages and then turns up beaten brutally in Albert Hospital. Violence hovers in the most familiar precincts of Maureen’s Garnethill, and Denise Mina once again proves herself to be an award-winning writer.

Publishers Weekly

In this powerful, disturbing, wrenching conclusion to the Scottish author's Garnethill trilogy (Garnethill; Exile), the sense of everydayness renders the horrors Mina's Glaswegians confront even more terrible. Forced prostitution, child sexual abuse, alcoholism, dysfunctionality of every kindall are not so much spotlighted as they are integral parts of the fabric of the characters' lives. But for Maureen O'Donnell, whose continued existence is a triumph of will, there's also a strong sense of family and friendships forged in the crucible of survival. Maureen and her friends Leslie and Kilty are as unlikely a trio of dragon-slayers as one might find. With trepidation, Maureen awaits the trial of her lover's murderer, Angus Farrell, whose evil threatens her even while he's in jail. And Maureen's abusive father, Michael, has returned to Glasgow and she fears for her sister's soon-to-be-born baby. Maureen's efforts to help an illiterate old woman fill out a legal complaint against her son lead her into more danger and ugliness. The sordidness and the seemingly insuperable odds Maureen faces make her retreat into alcoholism seem appropriate. Thanks to Mina's considerable narrative skills, the Glasgow of Paddy's flea market, Albert Hospital and the area near the bus station where street prostitutes hang out emerges in gritty clarity. The novel culminates in a startling crescendo of violence, vengeance and resolution. (June 7) Forecast: Blurbs from some big American mystery/thriller names could give this author a lift, but even with them her realistic, unglamorous characters and setting are likely to keep her out of bestseller territory. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Denise Mina is the author of Deception, the Garnethill trilogy, and Field of Blood. She lives in Glasgow, Scotland, with her family.