The Long Drop: A Novel - Softcover

Mina, Denise

3.39

4,250 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1443452521 ISBN 13: 9781443452526

Publisher: HarperAvenue, 2017

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A stand-alone true crime thriller from the acclaimed author of the Alex Morrow novels that exposes the dark hearts of the guilty . . . and the innocent.

True story: 1958, Glasgow. Peter Manuel broke into a suburban villa in Glasgow and murdered three members of the Watt family. William Watt, the father, a successful businessman and entrepreneur, was arrested and jailed for the crime, but the police couldn’t find enough evidence to charge him and he was released. Watt was determined to clear his own name and let it be known that he would pay for information. Peter Manuel contacted him and offered to help. The two men met in a bar and spent the next twelve hours drinking together.

No one knows what happened that night.

When Manuel was finally arrested weeks later on another murder charge, he represented himself in what the newspapers called the trial of the century.

The Long Drop is Denise Mina’s reimagining of the mysterious night Peter Manuel and William Watt spent together, intercut with the transcripted trial. Through a careful reconstruction of events, Mina’s riveting prose attempts to make sense of one of the most baffling and intriguing true crime cases in legal history.

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About the Author:

Denise Mina is the author of the novels The Red Road, Gods and Beasts, The End of the Wasp Season, Still Midnight, Slip of the Knife, The Dead Hour, The Field of Blood, Deception and the Garnethill Trilogy, the first installment of which won her the John Creasey Memorial Award for best first crime novel. Mina has twice received the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. She lives in Glasglow.

Review:

“The power of Mina’s writing is such that she can transport readers from placidity to violent pandemonium in the space of a paragraph.” (The Washington Post)

“She’s up there with Ian Rankin among practitioners of character-driven Scottish noir.” (The Philadelphia Inquirer)

“Riveting. . . . An installment that exposes the bleakness of small-town Scotland as skillfully as it does the bustling mean streets of Glasgow.” (Publishers Weekly (starred review))

“A wee fine read.” (Winnipeg Free Press)

“A page turner that is guaranteed to satisfy mystery lovers.” (The Vancouver Sun)

“There’s a wonderful Glasgow-ness to Mina’s writing. Using various points of view, she captures a city full of hopelessness and hope, a place of deep class divides and gang crime, of loyalty and pride in belonging.” (NOW Magazine)

“Deliciously shadowy.” (Metro London)

“Atmospheric and compelling.” (Woman & Home (UK))

“Takes you right under the characters’ skin. A relentlessly tense and exciting read, every page oozes menace and its core of truth makes it all the more unsettling.” (Sunday Mirror)

“A terrific exploration of crime and oppression.” (Kirkus Reviews (starred review))

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