Monday With Kaye: "The Red Road" by Denise Mina (Reviewed by Kaye George)

This week for her “Monday With Kaye” segment, Kaye George reviews THE RED ROAD. This is the fourth in the Alex Morrow series which started with STILL MIDNIGHT published in March of 2010. Amazon shows a new one in the series coming in December titled BLOOD, SALT, WATER: AN ALEX MORROW NOVEL.

The Red Road  by Denise Mina

Heart-pumping danger took me on a thrilling ride through this book, the fourth Alex Morrow Scottish procedural. 

The action flips back and forth between a series of events in 1997 and another series, involving many of the same characters in present time. This was a tiny bit confusing at first, but after I caught on to where everyone was, my enjoyment was heightened by this device. It’s essential to know how the events that happened to Rose Wilson and to several other key players affects what’s going on in the case Alex Morrow is trying to solve, a murder that takes place on the Red Road. A crucial event of world-wide import took place during the 1997 events, the death of Princess Diana. As an American, I was fascinated by the attitudes of the Scottish people toward this tragedy, and the story parallels that run alongside it.

Betrayal, mistrust, and destruction swirl around the day of Princess Di’s death and around the present day Glasgow and Strathclyde happenings. Warning: This is a gritty book and deals with a tough subject, prostitution by and mistreatment of a very young girl. I think you’ll like this immensely if that isn’t a barrier for you.

Reviewed by Kaye George author of Death in the Time of Ice for Suspense Magazine