The Dead Hour

A plucky novice reporter is stuck on the overnight police beat in 1980s' Scotland; the next thing she knows she's involved (a bit too involved) in a brutal murder. Narrator Heather O'Neill is so perfect in the role that listeners will hear her delightful Scots brogue in their heads for days. It's not often that a reader's voice so perfectly matches a character as O'Neill's does for reporter Paddy Mehan. Scottish novelist Denise Mina, who first introduced the reporter as a copyboy in 2005's FIELD OF BLOOD, has a flair for writing novels about working-class characters. Listeners will most likely relate to them. M.S. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

Starred review from May 8, 2006
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 activist and lawyer. The man bribes Paddy, as he had the police, to keep quiet. The next day the news of Vhari's murder dismays the normally scrupulous Paddy. When a suicide is fished out of the river, Paddy begins to connect the two deaths. Meanwhile, Vhari's cokehead sister, Kate, is on the run from Vhari's killer, and Mina skillfully alternates Kate's desperate point-of-view with that of Paddy, who's determined to do the right thing and bag the story. Hopefully, this won't be the last breathless adventure for one of the most entertaining reporter sleuths in recent crime fiction. 6-city author tour.