The Red Road by Denise Mina- review

Denise Mina’s 11th crime novel, The Red Road (Orion, £12.99), is one of her best, which is saying a good deal. Set in Glasgow, it marks the return of Detective Inspector Alex Morrow, mother of twins, sister of a gangster and equipped with too many sharp edges to prosper in her career. She’s a key prosecution witness at the trial of Michael Brown, one of the city’s nastier criminals. The only trouble is, Brown’s fingerprints have turned up at the scene of another murder, committed while he was in custody.

Simultaneously, a lawyer connected with Brown dies, and the corrupt and murderous organisation of which he was a part begins to disintegrate. Meanwhile, on a castle in Mull, the dead man’s son waits for the killers who he knows are coming for him. The second strand of the story, set in 1997, concerns a 14-year-old prostitute facing two charges of murder. Her only hope of making something tolerable from the rest of her life rests with this same lawyer, who finds in her plight something that reflects his own.

Such a bald summary is a poor introduction to this powerful and compassionate novel. In the hands of a lesser writer, the material could so easily have become overcomplicated and melodramatic. But Mina makes it entirely convincing. She reminds us that kindness takes unexpected forms and sprouts in unexpected places. On the way she plays havoc with our sympathies.

Yvonne Carmichael, the narrator of Louise Doughty’s Apple Tree Yard (Faber, £12.99), is one of those people who appear to have it all. A respected geneticist, she has a loyal husband, two grown-up children and a comfortable home. All this is put at risk almost wilfully when she begins an affair with a passing stranger, with whom she first makes love in the chapel of St Mary Undercroft in the Palace of Westminster.