Denise Mina

Mina's first Paddy Meehan novel, The Field of Blood, was filmed by the BBC for broadcast in 2011, and stars Jayd Johnson, Peter Capaldi and David Morrissey. The second, The Dead Hour, was filmed and broadcast in 2013.

It was while researching a PhD thesis on the ascription of mental illness to female offenders, and teaching criminology and criminal law at Strathclyde University in the 1990s, that she decided to write her first novel Garnethill, published in 1998 by Transworld.

Denise Mina (born 21 August, 1966) is a Scottish crime writer and playwright. She has written the Garnethill trilogy and another three novels featuring the character Patricia "Paddy" Meehan, a Glasgow journalist. Described as an author of Tartan Noir, she has also dabbled in comic book writing, having written 13 issues of Hellblazer.

Denise Mina was born in East Kilbride in 1966. Her father worked as an engineer. Because of his work, the family moved 21 times in 18 years: from Paris to The Hague, London, Scotland and Bergen. Mina left school at sixteen and worked in a variety of low-skilled jobs, including as a barmaid, kitchen porter and cook. She also worked for a time in a meat-processing factory. In her twenties she worked in auxiliary nursing for geriatric and terminal care patients before returning to education and earning a law degree from Glasgow University.