Sanctum [Paperback]

"One of the finest crime writers of her generation." -- "Express"
Praise for "Resolution":
"It's studded with images that stick in the mind long after the book is closed.... Denise Mina is set to carve a niche for herself as the Crown Princess of Crime." -- Val McDermid

"From the Trade Paperback edition."

‘The plot is unrolled artfully…the writing is lucid, and the minor characters breathe with an almost Dickensian life’

‘A masterly psychological web of people on the edge and the devils that lie beneath their apparent respectability. Engrossing’

‘Something special…A tour de force’

A powerful new stand-alone novel by Scotland's princess of crime, Denise Mina: ‘one of the finest crime writers of her generation’ EXPRESS

Lachlan Harriot is in a state of shock. His wife Susie has been convicted of the murder of serial killer Andrew Gow, a prisoner in her care. Unless Harriot can come up with grounds for an appeal in two weeks’ time, Susie will be given a life sentence, depriving her of her home, her family and her two-year-old daughter. Harriot is convinced that his wife, a respected forensic psychiatrist, is innocent, and each night climbs the stairs to Susie’s study where he goes through her papers, laboriously transcribing onto his computer her case notes, her interviews with Gow and his new wife Donna, and the press cuttings from the trial. But his search for the truth soon raises more questions than answers. Why had Susie stolen a set of prison files and then lied about it? What was the precise nature of her relationship with Gow? And, most importantly, what is it in her study that she doesn’t want her husband to find? As the documents on Harriot’s computer begin to multiply, his perception of what really happened between Gow and Susie becomes ever more complex. But first he must decide what he’s to do with a discovery that involves violence, sexual obsession, lust and ultimate betrayal. In her first stand-alone novel following her acclaimed GARNETHILL trilogy, Denise Mina looks at the shifting sands that separate fact and fiction, perception and reality, responsibility and culpability. Sanctum is a powerful psychological portrait of people living on the edge, an account of the deals with the devil that lie beneath their apparent respectability, and the terrifying journeys they are prepared to make in order to survive.

Denise Mina’s first stand-alone novel following her acclaimed GARNETHILL trilogy, SANCTUM is a powerful portrait of the terrifying journeys people are prepared to make in order to survive. Lachlan Harriot’s wife has been convicted of the murder of serial killer Andrew Gow, a prisoner in her care. Unless Harriot can come up with grounds for an appeal, Susie will be given a life sentence, depriving her of her home, her family and her two-year-old daughter. Harriot is convinced that Susie, a respected forensic psychiatrist, is innocent, and each night he climbs the stairs to her study where he goes through her papers, laboriously transcribing onto his computer her case notes, her interviews with Gow and his new wife Donna, and the press cuttings from the trial. But his search for the truth soon raises more questions than it answers…

As an academic researcher, Denise Mina has written extensively on the medicalization of deviant women, and until recently she taught criminology and Criminal Law. She is the author of Garnethill, for which she won the John Creasey Award for best first crime novel in 1998, Exile, Resolution and Sanctum. She lives with her partner and young son in Glasgow.