Denise Mina

Denise Mina
Born	1966 Glasgow, Scotland
Nationality	Scottish
Genres	Crime fiction
denisemina.co.uk

Denise Mina (born 1966, Glasgow) is a Scottish crime writer and playwright. She has written the Garnethill trilogy and another three novels featuring the character Patricia "Paddy" Meehan, a Glasgow journalist. Described as an author of Tartan Noir, she has also dabbled in comic book writing, having recently written 13 issues of Hellblazer.^[1] Since 2006, she has had two plays performed with successful reception.

Mina's first Paddy Mehan novel, The Field Of Blood, has recently been filmed by the BBC for broadcast in 2011, and stars Jayd Johnson, Peter Capaldi and David Morrissey.^[2]

Biography

Denise Mina was born in Glasgow in 1966. Her father worked as an engineer. Because of his work, the family moved 21 times in 18 years: from Paris to The Hague, London, Scotland and Bergen. Mina left school at sixteen and worked in a variety of low-skilled jobs, including: bar maid, kitchen porter and cook. She also worked for a time in a meat processing factory. Prior to attending university in her twenties, she worked in auxiliary nursing for geriatric and terminal care patients.

It was while researching a PhD thesis on the ascription of mental illness to female offenders, and teaching criminology and criminal law at Strathclyde University in the 1990s, that she decided to write her first novel Garnethill. Published in 1998 by Transworld, the book won the Crime Writers' Association John Creasy Dagger for Best First Crime Novel.

Mina lives in Glasgow.

Bibliography

Novels

Garnethill trilogy

• Garnethill (1998)
• Exile (2000)
• Resolution (2001)

Patricia "Paddy" Meehan novels

• The Field of Blood (2005)
• The Dead Hour (2006)
• The Last Breath (2007) - published as Slip of the Knife in America

Alex Morrow novels

• Still Midnight (2009)
• The End of the Wasp Season (2010)

Other novels

• Sanctum (2003) (published as Deception in the US in 2004)

Comics

• Hellblazer, # 216-228 (DC Comics, 2006–2007)
  • "Empathy is the Enemy" collected Hellblazer issues 216–222
  • "The Red Right Hand" collected Hellblazer issues 223–228

Plays

• Ida Tamson (2006)
• A Drunk Woman Looks at the Thistle (2007), inspired by Hugh MacDiarmid's long modernist poem, A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle, and first performed by Karen Dunbar.

Radio Plays

• The Meek, BBC Radio 3, 7 March 2009

Comic Collections and Graphic Novels

• Hellblazer: Empathy is the Enemy (2006)
• Hellblazer: The Red Right Hand (2007)
• A Sickness in the Family (2010)^[3]

Denise Mina signing books at the Edinburgh International Book Festival

Notes

1. ^ Irvine, Alex (2008), "John Constantine Hellblazer", in Dougall, Alastair, The Vertigo Encyclopedia, New York: Dorling Kindersley, pp. 102–111, ISBN 0-7566-4122-5, OCLC 213309015 
2. ^ Ellis, Maureen (13 December 2010), "Face to Face: Denise Mina", The Herald (Glasgow), http://www.heraldscotland.com/life-style/real-lives/face-to-face-denise-mina-1.1074064, retrieved 2010-12-14 
3. ^ Denise Mina Official Website

External links

• Personal Website
• Denise Mina at Contemporary Writers (British Council)
• Still Midnight review and interview in The Scotsman
• Transcript and audio of Denise Mina talking with Ian Rankin at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, 17 August 2006
• End of the Wasp Season Review - ShotsMag Ezine

Preceded by Mike Carey

Hellblazer writer 2006

Succeeded by Mike Carey

Persondata
Name	Mina, Denise
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1966
Place of birth	Glasgow, Scotland
Date of death
Place of death