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“Surely Paddy Meehan is the most unlikely, and most
realistic, investigator in recent crime fiction. And The Dead Hour is arguably the most gripping, surprising, and
satisfying thriller in many a season. Ms. Mina gives a reader everything from
grim deeds and grisly forensics to cutthroat office politics, sharp humor, warm
family scenes, and earthly sex. She can show as much with a raised eyebrow as
with an outright threat…The Dead Hour
is some kind of magnificent.”
— Wall Street Journal
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“Denise Mina has made
Paddy smart, feisty, hot-blooded, and guilty-stricken, a riveting creature of
her time and place. Ms. Mina writes inviting, colorful novels that happen to
involve some degree of chicanery…She is on footing with Ian Rankin and Peter
Robinson with this book.”
— New York Times
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“Her plotting skills
are top-drawer, but it’s in character description where Mina combines a painter’s
eye with a social worker’s keen perspective.”
— Ms.
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“Gloriously visceral…The Dead Hour showcases the author in
peak form as she continues the story of her young newspaper journalist Paddy
Meehan…Mina excels at narrative and social commentary.”
— Newsday
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“The Dead Hour is an intense and entertaining work of crime fiction
that feels so real it’ll leave dirt underneath the reader’s fingernails. And Paddy
Meehan is a brilliant auctorial concoction.”
— Denver Post
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“Paddy Meehan is the
anti-Nancy Drew…A winningly breezy sleuth-meets reporter series.”
— USA Today
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“Brutally funny.”
— People
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“Paddy’s company is
always a pleasure. And Mina’s narrative instincts are so strong, you end up
savoring the wait [to discover the connections between characters].”
— Philadelphia Inquirer
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“Subtle and shrewd.”
— Chicago Tribune
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“Mina, a colorful, muscular
writer, has got a real winner with Paddy, and readers will hope she doesn’t
grow up too fast.”
— Portsmouth Herald
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“If Denise Mina isn’t
careful, she’s going to undermine her status as a successful thriller writer by
creating characters we would care about in any old situation. In Paddy Meehan,
Mina has created a unique character who’s a swirling mass of disappointment,
ambition, anger, curiosity, sweetness, rudeness, and determination: in short, a
real human being.”
— Providence Journal
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“Mina has taken a
tired and often complacent genre and, while hardly subverting it, given it new
life.”
— Times Literary Supplement
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“Mina has succeeded
in making her Paddy an original, a feisty little creature.”
— Washington Times
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“Hopefully this won’t
be the last breathless adventure for one of the most entertaining reporter
sleuths in recent crime fiction.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)