Denise Mina

Denise Mina was born in Glasgow in 1966. Because of her father's job as an engineer, the family followed the north sea oil boom of the seventies around Europe, moving twenty-one times in eighteen years from Paris to the Hague, London, Scotland, and Bergen. She left school at sixteen and did several poorly paid jobs: working in a meat factory as a barmaid, a kitchen porter, and a cook. Eventually, she settled in auxiliary nursing for geriatric and terminal care patients.

At twenty-one, she passed exams, got into study Law at Glasgow University, and went on to research a Ph.D. thesis at Strathclyde University on the ascription of mental illness to female offenders, teaching criminology and criminal law in the meantime. But, misusing her grant, she stayed at home and wrote a novel, 'Garnethill,' when she was supposed to be studying instead. 'Garnethill' won the Crime Writers' Association John Creasy Dagger for the best first crime novel and was the start of a trilogy completed by 'Exile' and 'Resolution.' A fourth novel followed, a stand-alone, named 'Sanctum' in the UK and 'Deception' in the US. 

In 2005 'The Field of Blood' was published, the first of a series of five books following the career and life of journalist Paddy Meehan from the newsrooms of the early 1980s through the momentous events of the nineteen nineties. The second in the series was published in 2006, 'The Dead Hour,' and the third will follow in 2007. She also wrote comics and wrote 'Hellblazer,' the John Constantine series for Vertigo, for a year, published soon as graphic novels called 'Empathy is the Enemy' and 'The Red Right Hand.' She also wrote a one-off definitive book about spree killing and property prices called 'A Sickness in the Family' (DC Comics forthcoming).

In 2006 she wrote her first play, "Ida Tamson," an adaptation of a short story that was serialized in the Evening Times over five nights. The space was part of the Oran Mor 'A Play, a Pie and a Pint series, starred Elaine C. Smith, and was, frankly, rather super. As well as all of this, she writes short stories published in various collections, stories for BBC Radio 4, contributes to TV and radio as a big red face at the corner of the sofa who interjects occasionally, is writing a film adaptation of Ida Tamson and has several other projects on the go.