First thoughts on Exile

I absolutely love the Scottish writer Denise Mina and her lugubrious heroines (her less lugubrious heroine is Paddy Meehan and, unsurprisingly perhaps, I liked that book less. Some people though consider Meehan favorite of Mina's heroines.) I wish she would write more about Maureen O'Donnell but I guess she favors the trilogy approach so she is, alas, done. She is considered a writer of Tartan Noir. I decided to do some quick research on the term. It was coined by James Ellroy to describe Ian Rankin, whom he considered an exemplar of the genre. The roots of Tartan Noir go as far back as Robert Louis Stevenson but it was heavily influenced by the likes of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett.  Here are some other Tartan Noir writers, some of whom I'm not familiar with.

I thought Maureen would be happy since at the end of the first book, Garnethill, she vanquished the man who killed her boyfriend, raped mentally ill women and framed her brother Liam for the murder. But she's still depressed and on the outs with Leslie who has a new boyfriend who usurps all her time and likes it when she dresses like a tart (how could you Leslie?) She is tormented by the idea that her estranged father, who raped her as a child, is back in town and living somewhere not far from her. Her mother is still a sloppy drunk who refuses to believe any of it happened. And the police are still hassling her about the circumstances of Angus' capture (him being the rapist/murderer/therapist who Maureen beat the shit out of and framed.) I'll pick a tormented protagonist any day over a plucky heroine who finds love in the most unexpected places.

A woman from Leslie's shelter, Ann Harris, has disappeared and she asks Maureen to investigate. It's also clear Leslie isn't telling everything she knows. The woman has in fact been murdered, as you find out in the opening chapter. In London. And there is of course much more to the story and she's not the ordinary victim of domestic violence she makes herself out to be.

As usual, lots of great lines but here are a few, emphasis on the downbeat:

"Yeah, I'm a shit," she murmured, taking a deep draw on her cigarette, savoring the knowledge of an early death. "I'm a shit. I'm a shit." It was nine forty-five in the morning and she wanted to get drunk and stay drunk.

"Jimmy Harris couldn't hit a tambourine." Maureen took a deep drink of her whiskey and lime and felt the thin skin inside her top lip shrivel in the concentrated solution.

She looked at the address on the scrap of paper. Leslie has scribbled "thanks" as the bottom, as if Maureen were a vestigial friend doing her a favor, an unhappy reminder of the gray time before Cammy and the bracing breeze in her cleavage. 

(Inness being the slightly dense bullying police officer who keeps being sent to question Maureen about Angus and the letters he's been sending her from the mental hospital.)

Maureen didn't know what to say so she told the truth. "You're frightening me," she shouted. 

Inness stopped still. 'I didn't mean to," he said stupidly.

In a TV movie they would have hugged each other, he'd have come back in and they'd have had an honest discussion about their feelings, a sun-dappled moment of tenderness with a stranger, and they'd leave, elevated and touched at their common humanity. But this was Glasgow. "Fuck you," shouted Maureen, and slammed the door in his face.

Pauline was a June suicide...Two weeks after she was released [from psychiatric hospital], a walker had found her dead under a tree. Maureen couldn't stop thinking about her. Her thoughts kept short-circuiting straight from worry to the happy image of Pauline at peace on the grass in springtime, oblivious to the insects crawling over her legs.


She'd [Maureen] known a lot of people and didn't remember liking any of them. She looked down. It was just a short drop. But Jimmy had nothing, and she had 8000 pounds of Douglas' money left....The banks were still open: she could take it all out and drop it through his door. But she might not come back to this point, this part of the windowsill.....It was nice out here with the wind and the rain and Maureen closed her eyes.

BTW, Maureen mentions Liam throwing a Hogmanay party. It's easy to gather that this is New Year's but I wasn't familiar with the expression. Hogmanay is indeed the Scottish name for New Year's. The tradition may go all the way back to the Norse. There are parties and parades and certain traditions of certain foods and drink as gifts that are starting to fade away. The tradition of singing "Auld Lang Syne" originated with Hogmanay.