Product Description

The most praised thriller writer to burst onto the scene in years returns with a brilliant new story of suicide, murder, violence, and greed. Responding to a late night-call, Paddy Meehan arrives at an elegant villa, where a calm blonde with blood running from her mouth answers the door. She has already convinced the police to leave and soon Paddy realizes how--she slips 50 bucks into Paddy's hands and begs her to keep the incident, whatever it is, out of the press. The next morning Paddy sees the lead news story: The blonde woman has been murdered, and far from the spoiled trophy wife Paddy assumed her to be, the victim turns out to be a prosecution lawyer with a social conscience. Bewildered why the woman didn't take the chance to leave the house when she could, Paddy begins to make connections no one else has seen. When she witnesses the body of a suicide victim being pulled from the river shortly afterward, Paddy suspects links between the two deaths and follows her idea to its shocking--and deadly--conclusion.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #587695 in Books
• Published on: 2006-07-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

From Publishers Weekly
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. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine
Critics agree that Paddy Meehan may just be one of the most fascinating investigators in recent crime fiction—and that The Dead Hour is a gripping sequel to The Field of Blood. Purportedly about spousal abuse, the novel also features a secondary story about a woman on the run, ruminations on human nature and experience, and depictions of class and religious tensions during the Thatcher era. Paddy has evolved since the last novel; reviewers identified with her moral uncertainty and praised her hard-won confidence. The other Glasgow characters are equally lively, though their regional dialect confused some American critics. The novel's cliffhanger will make readers anxious for the third installment's arrival.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

From Booklist
During the bleak Thatcher era, Paddy Meehan, night cops reporter for the Scottish Daily News, is a sensitive, self-consciously overweight young woman competing for bylines with hard-bitten, middle-aged men. And it's just her bad luck to turn up for an apparent domestic-disturbance call at a posh residence where the cops take a bribe from the man who answers the door. Paddy sees a battered woman behind him and manages to ask a few questions before the man presses a large, blood-soaked bill into her hand and slams the door before she can return it. She writes up the story anyway. But when the woman turns up dead, guilt-wracked Paddy reports the attempted bribe to the cops and frets about losing her career when word reaches her editor. In the meantime, she'll open her own dogged investigation into the murder. In her second outing, Paddy holds up as a refreshingly realistic character that readers will eagerly embrace--warts, neuroses, and all. Mina also provides a gritty, authentic look at daily journalism's sausage-making process. Frank Sennett
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Ian Rankin passes the torch??
Fans of Ian Rankin's marvelous Inspector Rebus series are quite depressed at the prospect of the mandatory retirement of John Rebus after 20 books (we have only 2 to go). Fortunately, Edinburgh has produced another incredible crime fiction talent: Denise Mina.

Mina, a former attorney, has just penned the second book in a series that features Paddy Meehan, now crime reporter. In the first book Paddy was a lowly copy boy. Now she has worked her way up to late night crime beat coverage. She follows the police on calls. Her driver waits in the car while Paddy looks for the scoop.

The Dead Hour opens with a late night call to a mansion. A man has bloodied a woman but he bribes the police (and Paddy) to go away. Later, that same woman is found dead. Next stop, a suicide, a man has thrown himself in the river. Paddy is there and she wonders; what's the connection here?

A beautiful woman, her looks ravaged by drugs, drives a car with a trunkfull of cocaine, the baddies are on her tail. Where does she fit in? Paddy wants to know.

While she is sleuthing she finds time for a tryst with a married police officer (in his car). She becomes the laughingstock of the newsroom. Reporter does cop.

Mina does a lovely job of creating her tough but vulnerable cub reporter. The solving of crimes is less interesting that the development of the lovely Paddy. She is overweight, the sole support for her family, young and frivolous, part of a Catholic minority and she has desires for justice, sex and sweets. So human. So lovely. So fragile. So tough. A marvelous read!

The Graveyard Shift
"She looked up from her desk. Three copyboys were perched on their desks, scanning the room for the faintest signal. The newsroom was packed with men going about their business, but everyone seemed altered. The energy of the room seemed to move around her and the scoop she was writing up. No one came near her desk. This was t he respect of her peers."

Paddy Meehan thought she would be an investigative journalist, but here she was still on the night shift, chasing stories. And, by golly, one came her way. She followed the police to a home where a domestic dispute had unfolded. The woman, a young blonde lawyer refused to file charges, and the good looking young man who appeared to have caused her injury was walking free. Plus he gave Paddy a 50 pound note to keep this quiet. A bribe, well, sort of. Paddy needed the money, she was the sole support for her family and they needed the money. She took it. The next morning she discovered this woman was dead, was she partly responsible for not writing about this incident? Maybe, but who would know? Paddy would, and she could not live with it. She begins an investigation into what really happened.

All this while she is a decent young woman trying to make her way in a lfie full of bitter, nasty men, and her wish to get out of the dead-end world she grew up in without cutting herself off from her roots. The graveyard shift, hence the name "The Dead Hour' where things can get loose in the wee small hours. Even though Paddy has the ability for detection, she does not exhibit an aptitude as a journalist. She is self conscious particularly about her weight and is not as curious as one might expect. But she grows on you. She is likable.

As Paddy delves into the mystery of this murder, she becomes a little more sure of herself. She and one policeman believe that they are onto a murder and though they may be the only ones, they persue the clues and find surprising links. As Paddy pursues the clues her life may be in jeopardy.

Paddy Meehan, the Scottish lass, the unlikeliest of heroes meets her match, and it is hoped she will thrive. This is the second of a series, and it is well enough liked that Paddy Meehan will be seen again. Denise Mina, the author, has developed a real character, a woman that grows on ya. Highly Recommended.
prisrob 7-31-06

STORY AND NARRATOR ARE PERFECTLY MATCHED

From time to time a story and narrator seem perfectly matched - such is the case with Heather O'Neill and her narration of The Dead Hour. O'Neill's Scottish burr precisely suits; it's both distinctive and distinct. Her reading is firm, thoughtful, apt voice for this story of a bold young reporter, Paddy Meehan.

Paddy works for the Scottish Daily News where she's subject to verba; jabs from males on the staff. Granted, Paddy is a bit over weight, still there's no need to call her "wee hen" or "fat cow," is there? However, Paddy has much more on her mind than eternal dieting and the insultings comments levied at her - she's working the night shift when she goes to what has been called a domestic dispute in a well-to-do suburb. Once there she sees what appears to be a beautiful blonde woman - it's somewhat difficult to tell as the woman is bleeding from a head wound and rejecting offers of help, first from the police and now from Paddy.

The next morning Paddy is shocked to seee on the TV news that the woman she saw last evening has been found murdered. Remembering that she accepted a 50 pound note to go away, Paddy determines to find the woman's killer although that will, as she soon discovers, put her own life in jeopardy.

With this, the second in a five book Paddy Meehan series, Denise Mina establishes herself as a writer of note, sketching the city of Glasgow with authenticity and its people with color while spinning a first-rate crime novel.

- Gail Cooke