Still Midnight

I’ve been planning to read this for a long time but hadn’t managed to get round to it. What a treat it was! Alex Morrow is a Scottish detective sergeant destined to work with male colleagues who seem determined to shut her out while furthering their own careers.She is sharp, intelligent and although burdened by difficult family circumstances, doesn’t let it get in the way of work.

In Still Midnight an elderly man is kidnapped by a pair of bungling criminals. These two, Pat and Eddy, along with their sidekicks Malki and Shuggie are beautifully drawn. Their dangerous nature is disguised under layer of incompetence, making them sit somewhere in the zone between out and out funny and barely credible. I enjoyed the chapters that show more depicted their point of view immensely. The author’s mastery of the Scottish dialect made it even more fun.

The plot moves at a steady pace, revealing information in layers rather than relying on big, implausible twists. Mina balances police procedural detail with a real feel for human frailty. I liked Morrow’s wary navigation of her colleagues, the kidnappers’ ill-judged bravado, and their the victim’s quiet resilience. The result is a crime novel that feels grounded and lived-in rather than showy.

Yes, there are some elements of the story which are totally bonkers and defy belief. But I didn't care. It all added to the fun.

What impressed me most was Mina’s ear for dialogue and her ability to convey character through speech and small observation. She’s equally good at the grim and the absurd, often within the same scene, without ever breaking the sense of reality. Still Midnight is both tense and slyly funny, and Morrow is a character I definitely want to spend much more time with. I’ll definitely be continuing with the series. show less

When three armed men commit a home invasion, seriously injuring a young woman and taking an elderly man hostage, Detective Inspector Alex Morrow is assigned to the case along with DS Grant Bannerman, a man with whom Alex shares a strained professional relationship. The case is complicated by racism (the family whose home is invaded are Asian Muslims), and a mysterious person named “Bob” whom the criminals referred to when the crime was committed. Alex’s home life is in a shambles, the “good ole boy” attitude in the police station threatens to stall her career, and her half-brother becomes a player in a case with plenty of twists, turns, and surprises.

Still Midnight is the first book in a trilogy featuring Alex Morrow – a show more woman who is complicated, somewhat unlikeable and a bit of a pit bull when it comes to solving crime. The novel establishes its characters, delving into their backgrounds, problems and motivations, and pits the police against a rag-tag group of kidnappers who reminded me of the “bad guys” in the movie Fargo. The narrative moves back and forth from Alex’s POV to that of the kidnappers to that of the kidnapped man (Aamir), which allows the reader to fill in the pieces of the puzzle as the plot unfolds.

My favorite parts of the book were written from the points of view of Pat and Eddy, the criminals who seem like bumbling idiots for most of the novel. It was these sections of the book where Mina inserts a black humor, a sardonic look into the minds and character of those who commit violent crime. I also enjoyed the sections where Aamir revealed his tragic past and how those experiences influenced his response to being a victim.

The strengths of the novel are the complex lives of the characters and the theme of family loyalty, loss and recovery from trauma. It was here where Mina’s writing shone the brightest. But the book is not without its faults. Some of the plot seemed contrived, and the ending struck me as unbelievable. Despite these short comings, I did enjoy the book and plan on reading the second book of the trilogy, The End of Wasp Season.

Readers who enjoy thoughtful mysteries and suspense-thrillers, will want to give this one a try. show less

A gang's attempt to snatch someone named Bob from his home goes spectacularly wrong: there is no Bob so the thugs seize the elderly father and in the mayhem accidentally shot the daughter's hand. The case was given to Bannerman, a male detective, over DI Alex Morrow, an example of the bureaucratic misogyny in the Glasgow police. Mina's story is aggressive but she skillfully portrays all the characters, even the crackpots, accurately and credibly. And she doesn't hold back on the Scottish patois in consideration of a non-Scottish audience, a style that conveys more credence. The pugnacious Morrow has suffered a heartbreaking recent loss and her background explains much of her attitude and understanding of the criminal community. Her show more knowledge of the seedier side of Glasgow is invaluable. Gritty, but highly entertaining. show less

First Line: An orange Sainsbury's plastic bag in full sail floated along the dark pavement.

Once again Denise Mina takes us to the mean streets of Glasgow and serves up a tale of a kidnapping gone wrong peopled by finely nuanced characters.

Two Glasgow "yobs" (rowdy, aggressive, or violent young men) break into a Muslim home and demand to see Bob. When they realize that there is no one there by that name, they grab the family patriarch, Aamir Anwar, and name an astronomical sum as ransom-- an amount that no owner of a small grocery would ever be able to pay. Detective Sergeant Bannerman is assigned the case, although DS Alex Morrow is much more capable of solving it. As the investigation progresses, it is indeed Alex's knowledge of the show more area and her know-how that begins to piece together the clues needed to solve the case.

I've been a fan of Mina's since her Garnethill books. She tends to focus on characters that most readers would consider "throwaways", and she brings them to life in all their complexity and vulnerability. Although the tone is dark and the streets are mean, her books aren't true noir.

Mina demands readers who are patient and observant, readers who are willing to believe that characters who are criminals or drug users can have some good in them-- that they can even show flashes of humor from time to time. If you're a reader like that, then you will be sitting in high cotton because as you slowly peel back the layers of character and events, you'll feel just like Alex Morrow as you put the pieces together.

The further Alex investigates, she discovers that both criminals and victims aren't as they appear to be. A "case" in point is the kidnapped man, Aamir Anwar. Through most of the book, this small older man has a pillowcase covering his head, and he is referred to as "the pillowcase". I didn't like how this appellation dehumanized this character, and once Mina allowed me inside his head, I disliked it even more. This quiet, unassuming little man was just as full of memories, hopes and dreams as anyone else on this planet-- and he's not the only character you can feel this way about in Still Midnight.

As the story unfolds, I felt as though I knew the characters and that I had a stake in how their stories turned out. There were more than a few surprises along the way. Once again, Mina has a winner. The only thing that I feel like warning people about is that she does use Scots dialect, and if you're not used to it, it could be a little confusing. Still Midnight (and Mina's other novels) are well worth a bit of confusion. They're that good. show less

According to the famous names quoted on the back of STILL MIDNIGHT, Denise Mina is the crown princess of crime, past winner of the John Creasey Memorial Prize for her first crime novel GARNETHILL. She certainly is a writer that deserves a wide fan base, as she is undoubtedly one of the great writers of the nuanced central character.

STILL MIDNIGHT introduces one such new character - DS Alex Morrow. Morrow is prickly, raised by a single mother suffering from chronic depression, there but for the grace she's somehow kept herself out of trouble. She's somebody who the hierarchy think can't be trusted - she shoots from the hip too often, offends people, loses her temper, has a mouth on her and is simply not able to not use it, despite the show more need for politics and tact. What the hierarchy don't seem to realise is that she's way harder on herself than they could ever be. But she's badly rattled when she's not given responsibility for the sort of case that Detectives dream about. She would have been the perfect officer - a home invasion and the kidnapping of an elderly man - has happened right on her childhood stomping ground. She's knows a lot of the criminals in that area, she still has contacts, yet she somehow finds herself reporting to DS Bannerman - would-be surfer dude, political player, bosses mate. Morrow does what she does best, setting out pretty much on her own, doling out the snarling and insults as she proceeds, she rides roughshod over anyone who gets in the way. All the while struggling with the problems in her personal life.

The interesting thing about STILL MIDNIGHT is that there's a lot of ground in here that it seems frequent readers of crime fiction will have travelled before. Difficult central police characters; unthinking / unsupportive hierarchy; family problems; racism; troubled youth; lone wolves. Put these elements in the hands of a writer with the skill of Mina however, add a villain with an almost whimsical view of the world; a cock-up that puts the villains in a nothing to lose scenario and you have something that's edgy, involving and really really good.

Fans of Mina's GARNETHILL trilogy will find something vaguely familiar in STILL MIDNIGHT. There's something all too real in all of Mina's characters that might make you squirm just a little bit! Sure Alex and Maureen come from different sides of the law, but they are both flawed, complicated and frequently annoying characters who seem somehow familiar and extremely sympathetic. Add to that strong procedural elements, a great sense of place and pace, and STILL MIDNIGHT is a terrific book - let's hope it's the start of a new series. show less

This was both predictable, in its form and format, and new, in its texture and twists. The detective is Alex Morrow, a bit of a hard ass, in many ways the picture of a flawed police officer. As so many are. She is suffering from some kind of marital trouble, some grief or problem that isn’t named immediately but is revealed gradually. It reads like domestic abuse, and that could explain some of the attitude she displays at work, bucking the system and rubbing everyone the wrong way, but proving herself a competent, even brilliant investigator. The crime is perpetrated by a couple of guys who have a vaguely criminal history but are ultimately losers, dragged down by their inadequacies and thrown completely off kilter by their mistakes. show more The victims are innocent, or are they? Is anyone? The message seems to be that there is always more than meets the eye, and what we see on the surface is never the whole story. There is this weird fantastical element to the narrative, as various characters float off on dreamlike tangents, like they’ve lost touch with reality. The final scenes unspool with the reader understanding that he knows more than the character involved does, and that is an interesting device. It’s a bit of an unfinished ending, but that’s just the way things work out sometimes. show less

The story is skillfully woven around a handful of misshapen characters centered on Detective Alex Morrow. Alex is a woman of quiet some depth...full of contradictions trying to sort out the truth of her investigation...her boss and her fellow officers...along with her painful and sticky private life and trying to find her place in the world. She juggles all this with a kidnapping...an absolutely goofy love interest between a perpetrator and a victim that she somehow manages to make us feel sympathy for, and the adventures of a truly comic Glasgow gang. Overall, it's not a great read but certainly entertaining and time worthy.