The Field of Blood (Paperback)

In 1981, Patricia "Paddy" Meehan is working as a copygirl at the Scottish Daily News, much to the chagrin of her Catholic working class parents and Sean, her fiancé, who scorns her ambition and mocks her desire for feminine independence. Indeed, Paddy hopes someday to become a journalist; she's overjoyed to be working with some of the hottest reporters in Scotland, even if they are misogynists.

The chubby young neophyte finds it hard to fit in with the newsroom boys; they're hard drinking, hard cussing men, who pick on her for being overweight, and who spend most of their time hanging out in the local press bar. Paddy's constantly jealous of her coworker Heather, who is thin and blond and college educated; Heather simultaneously strikes the admiration and fear in all of the men.

The chance opportunity to ride along with law enforcement puts Paddy in close proximity to one of the paper’s biggest stories, the murder of three-year-old Brian Wilcox, his body found beaten to death near the local train station. Brian's murder sends shockwaves through the community and even raised eyebrows within the jaded newsroom. When Paddy learns of a previously unknown personal connection to the case – one of the accused is actually Sean's cousin - she takes this chance of confiding what she knows to Heather to gain status in the office.

Heather, however, is not to be trusted, and publishes the story under her own name. Consequently, Paddy loses the trust of her own family, who blame her for the news report. Becoming an outcast, she wonders the snowy, rain soaked streets, becoming ever more obsessed with the crime, even her beloved Sean will have nothing more to do with her.

Faced with a police force that ignores and refutes her newfound evidence, our intrepid protagonist, pushes on with the case, sure that the elements are there, even when her unpracticed mind can't seem to tease sense into them. As Paddy's investigation unfolds, so do her diet of hard-boiled eggs, her engagement to Sean, and her sense of security and safety.

Author, Denise Mina ambitiously describes her beloved Scotland, painting a realistic picture of a working-class landscape that’s gray, bleak and solemn, yet also remarkably vivid. This is the early 1980's when Scotland's Catholic-Protestant conflicts are taking place and when Northern England is reeling under Margaret Thatcher's new economic policies. Old factories are closing, and the old ways of deep religious conservatism are starting to give way.

Even Paddy admits that everyone she knew who had suffered a terrible tragedy in his or her life offered it up to Jesus; and she admits that she's had enough of this. Paddy yearns to be surrounded by helping hands that would encourage her ambitions instead of being afraid of them.

Part murder investigation and part diatribe on newspaper and media politics, Field of Blood manages to be a taut thriller, with the pace of the novel remaining constant throughout. There's a slow building toward the inevitable, a perfectly executed finale, as Paddy investigates in all the wrong places, and makes some savage enemies along the way.

Although it reads like a thriller, Field of Blood is also a finely wrought tale of a single-minded and determined young girl who seeks to make an independent life for herself, hoping to break away from the stifling misogyny and working class conservatism that surrounds her. Mike Leonard November 05.

That said, it's still a very good crime novel. 18-year-old Paddy Meehan is an excellent character, a slightly naive and confused young lady, rather struggling with the world, its expectations of her and her expectations of it, not to mention her deeply Catholic family. Her ambitions clearly don't sit comfortably with the mould tradition would deem Paddy grow into. Mina's evocation of 80's Glasgow is absolutely excellent (really - it's superb), and life at the Daily News is really brought to life. It's a very atmospheric and effective writing piece of writing in this sense, a claustrophobic and sometimes dark piece.

However, it's not as good a book as it could be, which is the problem. Mina spends SO much time on Paddy Meehan that the plot suffers, and seems to be more in the background than it should. Because of this I never felt as interested in it as I should be, because Mina's own concerns clearly lie elsewhere. And I SHOULD have been very interested in it: two young boys killing a toddler should really grab my attention and not let go.

Nonetheless, Paddy and her concerns and conflicts (internal and external) were enough to keep me reading, and the resolution of the crime itself is indeed very satisfying and surprising. Basically, it's a good book, written as adeptly as Mina's shown herself capacle of. But there's just a slight bitter disappointment that it's not as good as it really, really could have been.