The Dead Hour

by Denise Mina

First published 2007

Paddy Meehan answers what looks like a routine police call in Glasgow's wealthy north side. A blonde woman bleeds from a head wound in the shadows, refusing help. The well dressed man at the door tells Paddy everything is fine and she should leave. Then he presses fifty pounds into her hand to keep the incident out of the paper. By morning the woman is dead. Paddy faces a nightmare. If anyone discovers she took money to suppress the story, her journalism career dies before it starts. The responding officers are manipulating evidence for their own reasons. The official investigation stalls. Only Paddy refuses to let the case disappear. She pursues the truth behind the woman's death, knowing it could launch her career or destroy her life. The deeper she digs, the more dangerous her situation becomes.

Genres: suspense, mystery, crime, thriller

Vibes: dark, fast-paced, suspenseful

Tropes: unreliable-narrator

Setting: Glasgow

Period: 20th-century

512 pages · Mass Market Paperback · Bantam

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