Resolution: A Novel of Crime

Rating:
Summary: Mina's Finest
Review: Denise Mina concludes her extraordinary trilogy with a superb book. Resolution matches Garnethill and brings to full circle the saga of Maureen O'Donnell, the most interesting character, male or female, to emerge in crime fiction in recent years. Resolution stands on its own, although it is best read in sequence.

Rating:
Summary: What a grand finale
Review: If you're a fan of murder/mystery/swearing then don't buy this book, buy the first two in the series and start from the top, and come back later.
Good glad you bought both the first two, now this one, "resolution", simply put it's ******' brilliant. Sheer bloody genius, great story well told, what more can you want from a book. Muareen (the lead) is up to her usual shenanigans, but Denise Mina finds a way to round off the series in a way that leaves doesn't leave you disspointed. The only disspointment is waiting for the next book from this tallented young lady. 5 stars.

Rating:
Summary: Gritty Mystery
Review: Maureen O'Donnell has been abused, betrayed and is just trying to make some money. But her sister's baby is due, her father's in town and her former psychologist is up for trial. At the same time, a fellow stallholder at the flea market dies after a brutal beating. More non-American / non-English / non-Australian settings, please! (A)

Rating:
Summary: a bible for losers
Review: this is a depressing book, about a depraved and depressing area [scotland] inhabited by rapists, child molesters, gangsters, drug dealers, hookers, smugglers...and these are the good guys.

a recent study shows that 25 percent of all scottish people are functionally illiterate. it doesn't say how many scottish writers were surveyed.

i am a huge fan of 'crime fiction' from the noir novels of the 1930's on to anything short of books with cats and old ladies in them.

this book is not crime fiction, not a mystery and not a thriller. it is a gritty account of a bunch of losers suffering from various addictions and disorders, but without ANY SEMBLANCE of being hip or cool.

in glasgow it is considered sort of trendy to talk like you are choking to death and to be as down market and degenerate as possible. this book dwells for many hundreds of pages on this kind of vomit chic. [urinating in elevators etc amply described]

as a sociological portrait it is probably quite telling. i have no doubt there ARE lots of people like this. but if i am going to read about them i expect there to be some saving grace: of literary form or style or of revelation of some deeper truth.

forget about it.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent ...
Review: This is another excellent book by Denise Mina ... part of a fabulous series.

Rating:
Summary: Best in the trilogy
Review: This novel is far and away the best of the entire trilogy. It is so good that it even rates on my "Top Books of All Time" list. Once you get past all the re-telling of backstory, the events which have occured in previous novels, this is a superb book. Newscomers who start with this one will not find themselves lost, because Mina recaps everything that has gone before quite ably. If you have read the previous two, the retelling could get a bit tedious, i suppose, but you can always just ignore it.

It's an excellent novel, full of wonderful, fully formed and likeable characters who just jump off the pages. Mina's descriptions of Glasgow are absolutely superb, and her way with words and turn of phrase is sometimes stunning. The plot is great, the double plot strand intertwine brilliantly. This is a story about less-than average people trying to get through life relatively unscathed and not always making a good job of it.

As i say, the plot is excellent, and the writing is brilliant and assured. It's an incredibly compelling novel which you cannot put down. I ploughed through this one in a single day, i enjoyed it so much. Maureen O'Donnell's story is finally at an end, and after it all, as with all good books, we still want to know more about what is going to happen to her.

The conclusion is great and there are a couple of really neat twists to lift the plot above the excellent.

Rating:
Summary: Familiar territory
Review: This third volume featuring Maureen O'Donnell would, in anyone else's hands, have been serious overkill. However, it is a testament to Mina's writing talent that she manages to keep the reader's interest in the self-destructive heroine. In large measure, it's the secondary characters who help to achieve this. Maureen's friends Kilty and Leslie, her brother Liam, and sundry others supply enough contrast to keep one from becoming exhausted by Maureen's drinking, dark thoughts, and generally alcoholic behavior. There are moments of wonderful humor and, as in the two previous books, a fine evocation of Glasgow. That said, much of the action is fairly predictable and there are no great surprises. But the novel has such good momentum that it carries the reader through to a rather tepid conclusion. Definitely worth reading. And it'll be of interest to see what Mina does next.