Read "The Field of Blood" first. "The Dead Hour" is a continuation of a great character. Denise Mina is a first rate writer. I love this series and can't wait for her to write the next Paddy Meehan story. Denise Mina is as good as it gets.

My wish came true! As I turned the last page of Denise Mina's, "Field of Blood", I sat hoping that I'd meet Paddy Meehan in another Mina novel very soon. Her character, flawed as she is, was just too compelling to stop there. So I was eager to continue her saga in Mina's latest work, "The Dead Hour", and I was not disappointed. Again we walk along side Paddy; smart, cynical, self-loathing, responsible, frustrating and courageous. The story is again set in the mid 1980s in Scotland, which is a perfect time to depict the feeble beginnings of consciousness raising for both Paddy and society in general. Many things that happen to Paddy just wouldn't happen now (thankfully).

The plot is interesting and well constructed, though it is for Paddy and the wonderful and quirky cast of secondary characters that I loved this book. That has been true in all of Mina's work, and as great as the "Garnethill" trilogy was, this Meehan series is even better.

I don't have to wish and hope for more; the novel ends on a particularly provocative cliffhanger promising more Paddy Meehan to come. I'll be in line!

After the first incredibly well-situated, well-drawn Paddy Meehan mystery, this one seems a bit contrived. What happened to Paddy's lover, the star reporter? Why is she drawn to the loser detective? No matter -- all is resolved in the third installment. It's worth reading this well-done, engaging mystery to get to the last, but the book does seem a little contrived. Fortunately, Mina's writing is so incredible that even contrived is good.

Paddy grows as a journalist, and she develops a support system beyond her family. That's great. As a whole, though, I got the feeling that the story was more a requirement from the publisher than the author's intent.

Whatever - read it; it's excellent in itself, not necessarily as part of the series.

She's 21, fat, with "spiky hair" (whatever that means to you), she's quite unmaried but still sees her old boyfriend, an insipid do-nothing unemployed drip named Sean. She still lives at home with her father,mother, two brothers and her sister in a run down moldy, crowded house in public housing in the working section of mid 1980s Glasgow; and, working the graveyard shift as a cub reporter at The Scottish Herald, she's always tired, frumpy (clad in dreary second hand clothing except for a "new" coat which can't last), and the unsure but diligent and uncomplaining low man on the totem pole of a dysfunctional newsroom - and she's the sole support of her very Catholic family in larely Protestant Glasgow.

Hardly the heroine type, wouldn't you say? Yet she comes through. On a rainy winter night she follows the police on a call of a domestic disturbance in an upper class home in a Glasgow suburb and, as the door is opened on the police knock, sees a well dressed calm man who assures them everything is okay. However, behind him in the hall there's a beautiful woman, bloody and desparate who retreats back into the house instead of seeking police assisstance. Next day she's dead - murdered after being horibly tortured. So begins a long, complex who-dunit and what-happend story which involves Ms.(it's not Miss - as she makes clear) Meehan stumbling relentlessly through multiple incidents, subplots and travais from seeing the woman to a surprising end - two ends in fact. One an end the story iself, the other a tantalizing hint of more stories to come.

Framnkly I'm not sure I want to read another Paddy Meehan story. There's not much that's attractive about her and certainly nothing that's attractive about Glasgow in depresion in the middle of a cold rainy winter - and there's a lot of that in this book - rain, cold, hard times, old buildings, decay, drink, despair and a lot of Scottish slang which needs translation. It would also help to know Glasgow - paticularly its street plan. And I could do without all the four letter words Ms Mina uses so to excess in her writing.It brings the story - and the writing - down to street level, or below. She's much better than that.

Nevertheless I became captivated by the plot - and the subplots. I'm not a fan of mysteries and the noir quality of this one didn't appeal. But it's a good read. Needs a caeful one, though. Otherwise you overlook important details hidden in a phrase and lose the thread easily. Got to watch it!

It is now 1984, the age of "anything goes" even in Scotland where young Paddy (Scot for Patricia) has worked her way up in the news world from copyboy to crime reporter on the night shift. If you read David Hunter's book about the police aspect of crime, 'The Night Is Mine,' you are aware that most capital crimes happen at night or in the early hours of the morning. Not withstanding the plane explosions, as they get more press by taking place in the daytime.

Pat has now moved up and is a 'pro' in her own right. In 'Field of Blood,' she cracked the case of the child murder by obtaining access to the murder suspect -- due to who she knew. Coming to Glasgow from a small town in Scotland, she worried about her appearance and why she was stuck in a predominantly male dominated field. ON her job there at the 'Scottish Daily News,' she has acquired a hardened surface with the attitude of "if you can't beat them, join them" but to surpass the egotistical male reporters, her work is set out for her.

Newspaper world is far from glamorous, but in this story she has to hobknob with some of the society folk to find the particulars as to why the lady lawyer was killed and how her death was connected to a reported suicide. She finds herself involved in the world of police corruption on high where they accept payoffs, and the result is women being killed. Sounds like Knoxville. Pat decided to conduct her own investigation as the murder victim had given her a $50 bribe to keep quiet. Had she convinced the woman to leave while she was bleeding from a head injury but still alive, she would have been a hero. Now, she is a full-fledged crime reporter who will go far. Men aren't the only professionals or snobs in any field. We are just as smart and can be smart-mouthed should the occasion need it. It's a man-eat-man world in which the little lady can squeeze through the cracks and come out the victor.

Scottish writer Denise Mina has written several crime novels based in her homeland and got her start with the Garnet Hill trilogy. She has a vivid imagination and the speed with which to get her material published in a timely manner.